A coalition of eight major energy companies announced today the establishment of the Energy Transition Principles, aiming to create a collaborative platform for energy transition.

The companies – bp, Eni, Equinor, Galp, Occidental, Repsol, Royal Dutch Shell and Total – announced that they have agreed to apply the six principles, encompassing support for collective industry acceleration to contribute to the Paris Agreement objectives by delivering progress on reducing GHG emissions, the role of carbon sinks, and the importance of transparency and alignment on climate change with trade associations.

In a statement introducing the Principles, the CEOs of the companies said:

“Meeting the challenge of tackling climate change requires unprecedented collaboration between energy companies, governments, investors and other stakeholders. The principles will act as a framework for actions leading energy companies are taking together, as well as a platform for collaborating with wider stakeholders.”

In addition to the launch of the Principles, the group announced that in response to growing stakeholder demand for more consistency and transparency in the metrics used by industry to report on climate-related performance, additional collaboration is ongoing in two technical initiatives. The first initiative is focused on increasing transparency and consistency of the definitions and scopes used for data reporting, while acknowledging where differences remain due to the diversity of the companies’ businesses and approaches. The other initiative aims to develop a consistent methodological framework to measure and report the net carbon intensity of the companies’ energy products and emissions reduction activities.

Climate Action 100+, an investor initiative targeting the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to promote taking action on  climate change, welcomed the establishment of the new Principles. Adam Matthews, Chair of the Climate Action 100+ European Investor Working Group on a Net Zero Standard said:

“This is an important foundational commitment. It represents a significant consolidation of the progress that has been made in Europe whilst also seeing the first US oil and gas company joining with their European peers. As CA100+ investors we are in extensive and detailed dialogue with the oil and gas sector and it is extremely helpful to have a position from these companies that unifies around core principles including on scope 3 emissions and corporate lobbying amongst others.”

Anne Simpson, Climate Action 100+ Board Member from CalPERs said:

“We welcome the Energy Transition Principles which focus industry attention not just on what each company needs to do alone, but what all must do together. This cross-sector work will be vital to achieving the goal of Net Zero emissions in the real economy by 2050 or sooner.”