WWF ditches oil company shares in ethical move

The environmental reputation of BP suffered a blow yesterday when the UK branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature announced it was selling its shares in the oil company.

The charity said BP's activities were no longer compatible with WWF-UK's socially responsible investment policy, citing in particular the company's oil and gas operations in Alaska, where its safety record has come in for criticism, and possible future oil drilling in the vast Alaskan nature reserve, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Anwar).

The disposal of WWF's 51,000 BP shares, worth just under £200,000 at yesterday's price of £3.84, is a pinprick in financial terms to Britain's biggest company, which has a current market capitalisation of £25bn. But the moral significance of the sale by a green group with global influence is considerable.

It follows a similar BP share disposal by Henderson Global Investors, one of Britain's leading ethical investment funds, which announced last month it had lost confidence in the company's commitment to safety and the environment in Alaska.

There were two fatal accidents at BP's Prudhoe Bay oil base in Alaska last year, which led to widespread criticism of safety standards. And the company has refused to rule out oil drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge, if, as seems likely, President George Bush manages to overturn long-standing legal protection of the pristine area.

BP declined to comment on the WWF share sale, saying it had not been informed officially, but defended its safety and environmental record. There is no doubt, however, that the sale is a great embarrassment.

The company has tried for a long time to present itself as an environmentally friendly organisation, and in the late 1990s, its chief executive, Lord Browne, made several speeches accepting the reality of global warming, which earned him considerable credit in green circles. The process reached its height two years ago when BP rebranded itself as "Beyond Petroleum", a move that at first led environmentalists to think it was moving significantly in the direction of renewable energy. Pressure from the oil business and the City led to the company scaling back any ambitions it had.

The sense of disenchantment within the green movement was palpable, and was one of the reasons WWF was selling its shares, the charity's head of advocacy, Anita Neville, said. But the immediate causes were the company's recent health and safety record, and its intentions over Anwar. "They still won't say definitely that they won't go in, if it is opened up by the Bush administration," said Ms Neville.

A BP spokesman said the company's position on Anwar had not changed and last year it had withdrawn from the Alaskan lobby group trying to get the Bush administration to open the refuge up.

"If you look at our safety record in Alaska as a whole it has been good," the spokesman said. "At Prudhoe Bay ... the number of days lost through accidents was 18 times lower than in the average American workplace."