Macquarie Group shareholders have demanded the company disclose its fossil fuel exposure and how it will meet its climate goals.
The investment and financial services giant has been under scrutiny from shareholders after becoming the only Australian institution to pull out of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, following a handful of US investment banks ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration as US president in January.
The coalition of banks had signed on to supporting net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goals through their financing activities.
More than 180 Macquarie shareholders teamed up with activist shareholder group Market Forces to demand the company disclose its exposure to fossil fuel companies and projects, and to disclose how it assesses them.
"Macquarie is the only major Australian bank with no exclusions on directly financing new oil and gas fields," they wrote in the resolution.
"The Group has recently walked back its exclusion on financing metallurgical coal expansion, despite peers like Westpac, NAB and Commonwealth Bank applying stronger restrictions."
Macquarie's oil and gas exposure was up 70 per cent in the 2024 financial year to $3.4 billion.
Over the same period, CBA cut its exposure by roughly half to $1.7 billion, NAB's fell by a quarter over two years to $870 million and Westpac's decreased 27.5 per cent to $1.8 billion.
Macquarie could face millions of dollars in fines if its net-zero claims were found to amount to misleading or deceptive conduct, the resolution warned.
The corporate watchdog has made greenwashing an enforcement priority, with a particular focus on flimsy net-zero claims.
Macquarie faces a separate action from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for allegedly misreporting millions of short-selling transactions to the market operator over 14 years.
The investment bank was claiming to be leader in renewable investment while quietly backing the biggest fracking development in Australia's history in the Northern Territory, Market Forces chief executive Will van de Pol said.
"Macquarie's increasing finance for dangerous fossil fuel expansion is undermining its claim to be supporting the critical shift to clean energy," he said.
"It's financing companies like Empire Energy and Tamboran Resources to develop dangerous fracking in the Northern Territory's Beetaloo Basin, completely at odds with the Paris Agreement's goals to limit climate change."
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is banned in more than a dozen countries worldwide as well as in Victoria, Tasmania and parts of Western Australia due to environmental and public health concerns.
Shareholder Carolyn Berezovsky was appalled by the group's recent pivot.
"Macquarie is selling their soul, trading gas futures and following short-term returns over the critical global climate goals of the net-zero banking alliance," she said.
Macquarie acknowledged it had received a notice of the resolutions in a release to the Australian Securities Exchange.
"MGL's Notice of AGM will be published in June 2025 and will include the proposed resolutions and the Board's recommendation on each resolution to be considered at the meeting," it said.
