We have been engaging with the company since 2008 and are also the Climate Action 100+ engagement co-lead. Our engagement focus with BMW has been two areas: its electric vehicles strategy and its public policy advocacy.
We have engaged consistently on these issues over a five-year period, demonstrated by a site visit and multiple in-person and virtual meetings. We have also written to the chair and CEO, and submitted questions at annual general meetings in 2020, 2021 and 2022. We also supported dialogue between the company and a group of investors proposing a shareholder resolution that requested more detailed disclosures of the company’s direct and indirect lobbying.
Positively, BMW has significantly increased it ambition regarding electric vehicles, including interim sales targets over the last few years. These include multiple announcements in relation to CO2 emissions reduction target: per vehicle produced, across the company’s production and sites, and per vehicle in the supply chain.[1] In December 2021, it has also shared ambitious sales targets for fully-electric vehicles, planning sales of a total of two million vehicles by 2025.
On lobbying, the company promisingly stated in April 2022 that it would constantly review the engagements of its government affairs activities and engagement through the company’s memberships, and provide greater transparency to stakeholders by reporting on its engagements in climate-related public policy actions. In May 2022, the company shared with investors the publication of its first “BMW Group Climate Engagement Report”[2]– a significant and positive step forward. However, key improvements remain.
The next step for the company should be to improve its disclosures to better align with investor expectations on climate lobbying. We will continue to engage with the company on this issue and offer to provide feedback. We would also like to see BMW develop an explicit just transition strategy that better communicates how the company has considered the impacts of its transition strategy on its stakeholders and identified actions to mitigate these.