Target 7.1: Universal access to affordable, reliable energy
By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
In 2023 about 666 million people still lacked electricity and more than 2 billion lacked clean cooking. Some 85 percent of the unelectrified population is in sub-Saharan Africa, where the IEA reports energy investment one-third lower in 2025 than in 2015 and only 2 percent of global clean energy investment. International public finance is only about 7 percent of clean energy investment in developing economies outside China. Where listed utilities, oil and gas majors, distributed-solar firms and mobile-money operators choose to spend their money is therefore a necessary input. The IEA also finds that debt servicing exceeds 85 percent of Africa's energy investment and calls for more concessional support, which owners cannot supply. Corporate lobbying adds to the problem here rather than being the blocking obstacle, and we found no documented lobbying campaign blocking energy access. The existing voting channel is climate resolutions at energy majors, such as the Follow This resolution at Shell that drew 20 percent support in 2022 and 2023. The last-mile access gap in sub-Saharan Africa turns on sovereign debt, concessional finance and public utility reform that the IEA itself names as the missing pieces. Owners supply a necessary input, and governments and development lenders must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Energy access improving, but international financial support still needed to boost progress and address disparities, International Energy Agency, 2025-06-25
- World Energy Investment 2025, Executive summary, International Energy Agency, 2025
- One-fifth of Shell shareholders maintain demand for emissions reductions to meet Paris by voting for Follow This climate resolution, Follow This, 2023-05-23
1 campaign on record
Set targets that bring the emissions from the products Shell sells down by 2030 in line with the Paris climate agreement, rather than leaving the work to 2050.
With Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management, Degroof Petercam Asset Management
Result: 20 percent in favor at the 2023 annual meeting, the same share the resolution drew in 2022
we found no documented change. Follow This reports that Shell instead signaled it might step back from its existing climate plans in the weeks after the vote
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.