{"id":3857,"date":"2026-07-21T20:47:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/why-bp-abandoned-net-zero-strategy\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T20:54:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:54:51","slug":"why-bp-abandoned-net-zero-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/why-bp-abandoned-net-zero-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Pourquoi BP a-t-elle abandonn\u00e9 sa strat\u00e9gie de neutralit\u00e9 carbone ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>En f\u00e9vrier 2025, BP a abandonn\u00e9 sa strat\u00e9gie de neutralit\u00e9 carbone mise en place en 2020 et a r\u00e9investi ses capitaux dans le p\u00e9trole et le gaz. Voici, en quelques mots et avec des sources fiables, la r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 la question de savoir pourquoi cette entreprise, qui se pr\u00e9sentait comme la plus verte des grandes compagnies p\u00e9troli\u00e8res, a fait volte-face, les chiffres qui ont motiv\u00e9 cette d\u00e9cision et ce que ce revirement signifie pour les fournisseurs et les distributeurs travaillant avec le groupe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pourquoi BP a-t-elle abandonn\u00e9 sa strat\u00e9gie de neutralit\u00e9 carbone ?<\/strong> BP a abandonn\u00e9 son objectif de neutralit\u00e9 carbone de 2020 car cette strat\u00e9gie a g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9 de faibles rendements et un \u00e9cart de valorisation croissant avec ses concurrents, et non parce que l&#039;objectif climatique lui-m\u00eame a \u00e9chou\u00e9. Le 26 f\u00e9vrier 2025, le PDG Murray Auchincloss a annonc\u00e9 ce qu&#039;il a appel\u00e9 une r\u00e9initialisation fondamentale, r\u00e9affectant les capitaux des \u00e9nergies renouvelables au p\u00e9trole et au gaz\u00a0: porter les investissements dans le p\u00e9trole et le gaz \u00e0 environ 10 milliards de dollars par an jusqu&#039;en 2027, r\u00e9duire les d\u00e9penses li\u00e9es \u00e0 la transition \u00e9nerg\u00e9tique de plus de 5 milliards de dollars par an pour les ramener entre 1,5 et 2 milliards, et viser une production de 2,3 \u00e0 2,5 millions de barils \u00e9quivalent p\u00e9trole par jour d&#039;ici 2030. Cette r\u00e9initialisation a fait suite \u00e0 un effondrement des b\u00e9n\u00e9fices en 2024, \u00e0 381 millions de dollars, et aux pressions publiques exerc\u00e9es par le fonds activiste Elliott Management, qui a acquis une participation d&#039;environ 5\u00a0%. En r\u00e9sum\u00e9, BP a fait volte-face car le march\u00e9 a sanctionn\u00e9 le pari sur la transition \u00e9nerg\u00e9tique, et la rigueur budg\u00e9taire exigeait un retour aux sources de revenus les plus rentables.<\/p>\n<h2>D&#039;une entreprise \u00e9nerg\u00e9tique int\u00e9gr\u00e9e \u00e0 une grande compagnie p\u00e9troli\u00e8re<\/h2>\n<p>En 2020, sous la direction de Bernard Looney, alors PDG de BP, l&#039;entreprise s&#039;\u00e9tait engag\u00e9e \u00e0 atteindre la neutralit\u00e9 carbone d&#039;ici 2050 et ambitionnait de devenir une entreprise \u00e9nerg\u00e9tique int\u00e9gr\u00e9e, en r\u00e9duisant sa production de p\u00e9trole et de gaz tout en d\u00e9veloppant les \u00e9nergies renouvelables, la bio\u00e9nergie et l&#039;hydrog\u00e8ne. Le 26 f\u00e9vrier 2025, BP a fait volte-face. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bp.com\/press-and-publications\/press-releases\/growing-shareholder-value-a-reset-bp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">r\u00e9initialisation de la strat\u00e9gie<\/a>, Auchincloss a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 que BP avait fondamentalement revu sa strat\u00e9gie, r\u00e9duisant et r\u00e9allouant ses capitaux \u00e0 ses activit\u00e9s les plus rentables. Concr\u00e8tement, cela s&#039;est traduit par une augmentation de la production de p\u00e9trole et de gaz, une r\u00e9duction significative des activit\u00e9s \u00e0 faible \u00e9mission de carbone et un recentrage radical de la croissance sur la rentabilit\u00e9 et le redressement du bilan.<\/p>\n<p>Il s&#039;agit du revirement le plus important op\u00e9r\u00e9 par une grande compagnie p\u00e9troli\u00e8re au cours de cette d\u00e9cennie, et il a lev\u00e9 la plupart des incertitudes quant aux nouveaux positionnements de BP. L&#039;entreprise est en cours de r\u00e9organisation autour de deux segments, l&#039;amont et l&#039;aval, tandis que sa filiale sp\u00e9cialis\u00e9e dans les activit\u00e9s \u00e0 faibles \u00e9missions de carbone est progressivement absorb\u00e9e et d\u00e9mantel\u00e9e. Pour une analyse compl\u00e8te de cette restructuration et des risques li\u00e9s \u00e0 sa mise en \u0153uvre, veuillez consulter notre dossier sur <a href=\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/bp-strategic-reset-2026\/\">BP&#8217;s strategic reset<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Le march\u00e9 n&#039;a pas r\u00e9compens\u00e9 la transition.<\/h2>\n<p>The 2020 strategy was a bet that the energy transition would accelerate, that investor and societal sentiment demanded it, and that BP could build higher growth low carbon franchises while legacy hydrocarbons funded the dividend. The bet did not pay off in the market. Renewable returns proved lower and slower than oil and gas, BP&#8217;s shares lagged peers who stayed disciplined on hydrocarbons, and a valuation gap opened that made the company a target.<\/p>\n<p>The financial trigger was stark. BP&#8217;s 2024 profit collapsed to 381 million US dollars, and activist investor Elliott Management built a stake of about 5 percent and pressed for a sharper focus on returns. Faced with a punished share price and an activist on the register, BP chose the path that the market was rewarding elsewhere: concentrate capital where the cash is, exactly the discipline we see in <a href=\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/exxonmobil-advantaged-assets-strategy\/\">ExxonMobil&#8217;s value over volume strategy<\/a> et dans <a href=\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/equinor-capital-markets-day-2026-strategy\/\">Equinor&#8217;s tuned transition pace<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Le glissement du capital raconte l&#039;histoire<\/h2>\n<p>The headline figures come from BP&#8217;s own February 2025 release. They show a company reallocating capital toward hydrocarbons and away from the transition, while repairing its balance sheet through divestment.<\/p>\n<h2>Lisez la chute du capital, pas le rapport sur le d\u00e9veloppement durable<\/h2>\n<p>Ce renversement de situation est une information exploitable. Les budgets sont r\u00e9orient\u00e9s vers l&#039;amont p\u00e9trolier et gazier, la fiabilit\u00e9 du raffinage, le GNL, le n\u00e9goce et les outils num\u00e9riques qui les soutiennent, tandis que les propositions ax\u00e9es exclusivement sur les \u00e9nergies renouvelables se heurtent \u00e0 une contrepartie BP r\u00e9duite et sous-capitalis\u00e9e. La premi\u00e8re \u00e9tape concr\u00e8te consiste \u00e0 r\u00e9affecter le compte BP aux deux nouveaux segments, Amont et Aval, car l&#039;unit\u00e9 autonome bas carbone dans laquelle de nombreux fournisseurs vendaient leurs produits est en cours d&#039;absorption.<\/p>\n<p>The wider lesson is that a major&#8217;s public sustainability narrative is a weaker predictor of where it spends than its capital allocation slide. Sellers who track capital discipline, returns targets and divestment programmes will read these shifts before the press release, exactly the posture we argue for in <a href=\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/energy-marketing-strategy-2026\/\">strat\u00e9gie marketing pour les entreprises \u00e9nerg\u00e9tiques<\/a>. La strat\u00e9gie gagnante consiste \u00e0 vendre l\u00e0 o\u00f9 l&#039;argent va, en pr\u00e9sentant un argumentaire de rentabilit\u00e9 plut\u00f4t qu&#039;une argumentation bas\u00e9e sur les valeurs, une strat\u00e9gie \u00e9labor\u00e9e et non pr\u00e9sum\u00e9e.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BP abandoned net zero because the 2020 transition bet delivered weak returns and a valuation gap, not because decarbonisation failed. The sourced answer, the numbers, and what it signals for suppliers.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"p54_article_data":"{\"meta\": {\"kicker\": \"Answer \u00b7 Energy Transition\", \"topics\": [\"Analysis\", \"Strategy\"], \"title\": \"Why Did BP Abandon Its Net Zero Strategy?\", \"dek\": \"In February 2025 BP tore up the net zero pivot it had made in 2020 and put its capital back into oil and gas. This is the short, sourced answer to why the company that branded itself the greenest major reversed course, the numbers that drove the decision, and what the reversal signals for suppliers and marketers selling into the group.\", \"date\": \"21 July 2026\", \"readTime\": \"9 min read\", \"author\": \"Project 54, Research & Strategy\", \"dateModified\": \"2026-07-21\"}, \"quickAnswer\": {\"q\": \"Why did BP abandon its net zero strategy?\", \"a\": \"BP abandoned its 2020 net zero pivot because the strategy delivered weak returns and a widening valuation gap with rivals, not because the climate goal itself failed. On 26 February 2025 chief executive Murray Auchincloss announced what he called a fundamental reset, reallocating capital from renewables back to oil and gas: raising oil and gas investment to around 10 billion US dollars a year through 2027, cutting transition business spending by more than 5 billion US dollars a year to between 1.5 and 2 billion, and targeting production of 2.3 to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030. The reset followed a collapse in 2024 profit to 381 million US dollars and public pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, which built a stake of about 5 percent. In short, BP reversed because the market punished the transition bet, and capital discipline demanded a return to the highest returning barrels.\"}, \"takeaways\": [\"BP did not abandon net zero because decarbonisation failed, it abandoned it because the strategy produced weak returns and a valuation discount to peers who stayed with oil and gas.\", \"The 26 February 2025 reset raised oil and gas investment to around 10 billion US dollars a year and cut transition spending by more than 5 billion a year, to between 1.5 and 2 billion.\", \"The trigger was financial: 2024 profit collapsed to 381 million US dollars, and activist investor Elliott Management built a roughly 5 percent stake and pushed for change.\", \"The reversal is the clearest case of a wider pattern: capital is chasing returns, not slogans, and every major is now judged on cash generation per barrel rather than transition ambition.\", \"For suppliers, budget is flowing to upstream oil and gas, refining reliability, LNG and trading, while renewables only vendors face a shrinking, de-capitalised BP counterparty.\"], \"sections\": [{\"id\": \"what\", \"q\": \"What exactly did BP change?\", \"h\": \"From an integrated energy company back to an oil major\", \"p\": [\"In 2020, under then chief executive Bernard Looney, BP committed to net zero by 2050 and set out to become an integrated energy company, cutting oil and gas output while scaling renewables, bioenergy and hydrogen. On 26 February 2025 the company reversed that direction. In its own <a href=\\\"https:\/\/www.bp.com\/press-and-publications\/press-releases\/growing-shareholder-value-a-reset-bp\\\">strategy reset<\/a>, Auchincloss said BP had fundamentally reset its strategy, reducing and reallocating capital to its highest returning businesses. In practice that meant more oil and gas, far less low carbon, and a hard pivot from growth back to returns and balance sheet repair.\", \"This was the deepest reversal by any oil major this decade, and it removed most of the ambiguity about where BP now competes. The company is being reorganised around two segments, Upstream and Downstream, and the standalone low carbon unit is being absorbed and run down. For a full account of the reset and its execution risk, see our dossier on <a href=\\\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/bp-strategic-reset-2026\/\\\">BP's strategic reset<\/a>.\"]}, {\"id\": \"why\", \"q\": \"Why did the net zero bet fail commercially?\", \"h\": \"The market did not reward the transition\", \"p\": [\"The 2020 strategy was a bet that the energy transition would accelerate, that investor and societal sentiment demanded it, and that BP could build higher growth low carbon franchises while legacy hydrocarbons funded the dividend. The bet did not pay off in the market. Renewable returns proved lower and slower than oil and gas, BP's shares lagged peers who stayed disciplined on hydrocarbons, and a valuation gap opened that made the company a target.\", \"The financial trigger was stark. BP's 2024 profit collapsed to 381 million US dollars, and activist investor Elliott Management built a stake of about 5 percent and pressed for a sharper focus on returns. Faced with a punished share price and an activist on the register, BP chose the path that the market was rewarding elsewhere: concentrate capital where the cash is, exactly the discipline we see in <a href=\\\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/exxonmobil-advantaged-assets-strategy\/\\\">ExxonMobil's value over volume strategy<\/a> and in <a href=\\\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/equinor-capital-markets-day-2026-strategy\/\\\">Equinor's tuned transition pace<\/a>.\"]}, {\"id\": \"numbers\", \"q\": \"What are the numbers behind the reset?\", \"h\": \"The capital slide tells the story\", \"p\": [\"The headline figures come from BP's own February 2025 release. They show a company reallocating capital toward hydrocarbons and away from the transition, while repairing its balance sheet through divestment.\"], \"table\": {\"cols\": [\"Lever\", \"Before (2020 strategy)\", \"After (2025 reset)\", \"What it signals\"], \"rows\": [[\"Oil and gas investment\", \"Declining under the transition plan\", \"Around 10 billion USD a year through 2027\", \"Hydrocarbons are the growth lane again\"], [\"Transition investment\", \"Scaling up\", \"1.5 to 2 billion USD a year, cut by more than 5 billion\", \"Low carbon is de-prioritised, not eliminated\"], [\"Group capital\", \"Higher\", \"13 to 15 billion USD a year\", \"Overall discipline and lower spend\"], [\"Divestment\", \"Not a focus\", \"20 billion USD target by end 2027\", \"Balance sheet repair over growth\"], [\"Production by 2030\", \"Falling under net zero plan\", \"2.3 to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day\", \"Output rises again, reversing the 2020 pledge\"]]}}, {\"id\": \"suppliers\", \"q\": \"What does BP's reversal signal for suppliers and marketers?\", \"h\": \"Read the capital slide, not the sustainability report\", \"p\": [\"The reversal is actionable intelligence. Budget is flowing to upstream oil and gas, refining reliability, LNG, trading and the digital tools that support them, while renewables only propositions face a shrinking, de-capitalised BP counterparty. The first practical step is to re-map the BP account to the two new segments, Upstream and Downstream, because the standalone low carbon unit that many vendors sold into is being absorbed.\", \"The wider lesson is that a major's public sustainability narrative is a weaker predictor of where it spends than its capital allocation slide. Sellers who track capital discipline, returns targets and divestment programmes will read these shifts before the press release, exactly the posture we argue for in <a href=\\\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/energy-marketing-strategy-2026\/\\\">marketing strategy for energy companies<\/a>. The winning move is to sell to where the cash is going, with a payback case rather than a values pitch, engineered, not assumed.\"]}], \"media\": {\"image\": {\"src\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/oil-refinery-flare-stack-dusk.jpg\", \"label\": \"BP's reset put capital back into oil and gas, refining and trading, reversing the 2020 pledge to shrink hydrocarbons.\", \"credit\": \"Project 54\"}, \"infographicLabel\": \"Why BP reversed: weak returns and a valuation gap, not a failed climate goal.\"}, \"poll\": {\"q\": \"BP abandoned net zero after weak returns and activist pressure. What is the sharpest read of the reversal?\", \"note\": \"No tallies. Each option maps to a real interpretation.\", \"options\": [{\"id\": \"a\", \"label\": \"The climate goal was always unrealistic\", \"insight\": \"This overstates the case. BP hit real operational milestones under the 2020 plan. What failed was the market return, not the technical feasibility, which is why the reversal was about capital allocation rather than climate science.\"}, {\"id\": \"b\", \"label\": \"The market punished the transition bet\", \"insight\": \"This is the most accurate read. A collapsed 2024 profit and a valuation gap to disciplined peers, plus an activist stake, made the return story untenable. BP followed the capital, not the slogan.\"}, {\"id\": \"c\", \"label\": \"Activist pressure forced it\", \"insight\": \"Partly true. Elliott's roughly 5 percent stake sharpened the focus on returns, but the underlying driver was weak performance. The activist accelerated a decision the numbers already pointed to.\"}, {\"id\": \"d\", \"label\": \"It is temporary and BP will pivot back\", \"insight\": \"Unlikely on current evidence. The reset is being accelerated, not softened, and the low carbon unit is being absorbed. A reversal would need both far stronger renewable returns and a very different investor base.\"}]}, \"faq\": [{\"q\": \"When did BP abandon its net zero strategy?\", \"a\": \"BP announced its strategic reset on 26 February 2025, reversing the net zero pivot it had made in 2020. Chief executive Murray Auchincloss described it as a fundamental reset that reallocates capital from renewables back to oil and gas.\"}, {\"q\": \"Did BP drop its net zero target entirely?\", \"a\": \"BP did not eliminate low carbon activity, but it sharply de-prioritised it, cutting transition investment to between 1.5 and 2 billion US dollars a year, more than 5 billion below prior guidance, and dropping targets to reduce oil and gas output. The practical effect is a return to being an oil and gas led major.\"}, {\"q\": \"What drove BP's reversal?\", \"a\": \"The main drivers were financial: BP's 2024 profit collapsed to 381 million US dollars, its shares lagged peers who stayed focused on hydrocarbons, and activist investor Elliott Management built a stake of about 5 percent and pushed for higher returns. Capital discipline, not climate policy, drove the decision.\"}, {\"q\": \"How much is BP now investing in oil and gas?\", \"a\": \"BP is raising oil and gas investment to around 10 billion US dollars a year through 2027, within a group capital budget of 13 to 15 billion a year, and targeting production of 2.3 to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030, alongside a 20 billion US dollar divestment programme by end 2027.\"}, {\"q\": \"What does BP's reversal mean for suppliers?\", \"a\": \"Budget is flowing to upstream oil and gas, refining reliability, LNG, trading and their digital tools, while renewables only suppliers face a shrinking, de-capitalised BP counterparty. Vendors should re-map the account to BP's two new segments, Upstream and Downstream, and lead with a returns and payback case.\"}], \"newsletter\": {\"kicker\": \"The Energy Growth Brief\", \"title\": [\"Intelligence,\", \"to your inbox\"], \"body\": \"Join energy and industrial leaders getting our marketing, AI-growth and revenue-architecture intelligence, direct, no filler.\", \"placeholder\": \"you@company.com\", \"cta\": \"Subscribe\", \"note\": \"No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We read every reply.\"}, \"related\": [{\"title\": \"BP's Strategic Reset in 2026\", \"topic\": \"Analysis\", \"href\": \"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/bp-strategic-reset-2026\/\"}, {\"title\": \"ExxonMobil's Advantaged Assets Strategy\", \"topic\": \"Strategy\", \"href\": \"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/exxonmobil-advantaged-assets-strategy\/\"}, {\"title\": \"Equinor's 2026 Capital Markets Day Strategy\", \"topic\": \"Analysis\", \"href\": \"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/equinor-capital-markets-day-2026-strategy\/\"}, {\"title\": \"Chevron Starts Selling Power, Not Barrels\", \"topic\": \"Analysis\", \"href\": \"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/chevron-microsoft-project-kilby\/\"}]}","p54_faq":"","p54_media":"","p54_comments_enabled":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis","category-strategy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3859,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/3859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}