Activists call for Standard Bank execs with ties to fossil fuels to get the boot

Environmental activists are calling on shareholders to vote against the re-election of five Standard Bank directors at the upcoming AGM on the basis that they are conflicted on matters of climate change.

The call from the activists, who have issued a letter to shareholders, comes ahead of the bank’s virtual AGM, which is scheduled to take place on June 26.

In a media release issued on Monday by Just Share, a shareholder activist NGO, it said seven of Standard Bank’s 18 board members are conflicted on climate change-related matters “by virtue of their ties to the fossil fuel industry”.

Five are up for election or reelection at the company’s AGM. They are Sasol directors Trix Kennealy and Nomgando Matyumza; former BP Southern Africa CEO and current Sasol executive Priscillah Mabelane; Nonkululeko Nyembezi, CEO of Ichor Coal, and Jacko Maree, former Standard Bank CEO currently

A letter to shareholders has been issued ahead of the bank’s virtual AGM later in June

also serving on the board of the Phembani Group, which is invested in fossil fuels.

Just Share said board members with a conflict of interest are required by the Companies Act to declare those interests and to recuse themselves from board meetings during consideration of any matter in relation to which they are conflicted.

“In these circumstances, responsible investors holding Standard Bank shares are faced with no good options: either these board members will recuse themselves, creating a corporate governance void when the board considers some of its most important strategic issues as, by the bank’s own admission, climate-related matters are; or they will not, compromising the ability of the board to provide climate-competent leadership.”

In 2019, Just Share, in partnership with other activists organisations, proposed that a climate change resolution be tabled at Standard Bank’s AGM. The bank agreed and became the first SA company to table such a resolution. Ahead of the 2020 AGM, Just Share and fellow activist NGO the Raith Foundation filed another resolution which asked the bank — one of the biggest oil and gas lenders in the regions — to extend its coal financing policies to include its position on oil and gas financing.

Standard Bank has, however, refused to table this resolution.

Just share said the election of the climate-conflicted board members “risks entrenching a high tolerance for exposure to the fossil fuel industry for years to come”.