Things fall apart, especially when the things are voluntary. Companies that rushed to sign up to net zero initiatives are now stampeding for the exit. Shell and other big energy groups have quit a body attempting to set net zero standards for oil and gas companies. This comes in the wake of HSBC and fellow financial services operators deserting the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
The peer pressure wrought by voluntary initiatives is of little use if peers quit. And there is little to keep them, especially once the easy wins have been picked off. These pacts are nonbinding and lack any legislative heft. More to the point, they are untethered from both profitability and consumer demand.
Heavyweight investors want profits and the inconvenient truth is that Big Oil’s short-term gains accrue from fossil fuels. Consumers by and large want products and services that are affordable. In terms of provoking blushes, filling the car with petrol ranks far lower than, say, taking out a mortgage in the 1970s with a bank that helped prop up South Africa’s apartheid regime.