Just Share’s latest briefing, on Sasol’s 2025 climate disclosures, points out that multiple significant questions about the robustness and feasibility of Sasol’s “optimised Emission Reduction Roadmap (ERR)” remain unanswered.
At its May 2025 Capital Markets Day, Sasol announced that its “optimised” ERR will achieve the same 30%-by-2030 emission reduction targets to which it committed in 2021, at a fraction of the cost. Sasol claims that it can still achieve this target with no coal-to-gas feedstock replacement and increased production levels. It plans to “offset” increased emissions from maximised production through renewable energy investments and carbon offsets.
However, most emissions are from the Secunda Operation’s coal-to-liquid process and “offsetting” emissions does not prevent or undo the harm from burning fossil fuels. Sasol has also previously undertaken not to use offsets to meet its 2030 targets.
In the face of the glaring gaps in its decarbonisation plans, investors cannot properly assess how Sasol will implement the ERR in a way that ensures credible real-world emission reductions. This, together with the company’s doubling-down on fossil fuels, leads Just Share to recommend that investors vote against Sasol’s “say on climate” shareholder resolution which it has placed on the ballot ahead of its electronic-only 14 November AGM.
In 2024, following vastly reduced shareholder support of its climate plans in 2023, Sasol did not invite shareholders to vote on its ERR progress. It has this year again asked shareholders to express a non-binding opinion on its climate change strategy, stating that this resolution will remain in effect until 2028, “(u)nless the strategy and management approach towards climate change are materially changed”. In other words, Sasol does not intend to ask for its investors’ opinion on this issue until two years before its deadline to meet several of its emission reduction targets.
To exacerbate this position, Sasol continues to refuse to table shareholder-proposed resolutions at its AGMs. This year, it again refused to put a resolution co-filed by Just Share and Aeon Investment Management on the ballot. The resolution called for an independent third-party report on the cumulative external costs of the climate and air pollution impacts of Sasol’s Secunda Operations, in particular, mortality and health impacts for the most vulnerable populations affected by its operations, including the children, women and the elderly whose rights are negatively affected by these impacts, and the costs to the economy (for example working and school days lost) as a result of these impacts.
A detailed supporting statement explains the rationale for the resolution. In short, although Sasol regularly publicises that it has extensive positive impacts on South Africa’s economy, the external costs and negative impacts of its operations, all of which are imposed on society, particularly the most vulnerable – and the risks that these pose to Sasol, to investors, and to society at large – have largely not been quantified or disclosed.
Neither Sasol’s original ERR nor its “optimised” ERR have integrated the climate- and air quality-related impacts and costs of its operations, either for Sasol or for the South African economy and broader society. This is a gap of significant relevance to the company’s shareholders, because it means that material financial and other risks related to the company are absent from investor decision-making.
A failure by Sasol to consider and integrate all risks and costs that it faces may place investor capital at substantial risk. Given the credible risk of non-delivery by the company on the commitments in the optimised ERR, and to ensure well-informed investment decisions, it is important for shareholders and other stakeholders to have full details of Sasol’s plans to ensure that it can meet its decarbonisation targets. It is also essential for shareholders and policy-makers to better understand the broader impacts of the company, and the risks that these pose to the economy and society.
In circumstances where Sasol has failed to produce a clear and credible transition plan, has doubled down on its commitment to fossil fuels, is not on track with various of its commitments, lobbies against climate and air quality regulation, and fails to disclose its negative externalities (or even to allow shareholders to vote on whether it should do so), investors at Sasol’s 14 November AGM should send a clear signal to Sasol that its climate plans are not supported.
