Mark van Baal

Function: Founder
Company: Follow This

Mark van Baal is the founder of Follow This, a group of over 8,500 green shareholders that has become Big Oil’s biggest change agent: its campaign compelled five oil majors to reluctantly promise to cut product emissions (Scope 3), thanks to the support of institutional investors that Follow This rallied to vote in favour of the Follow This climate resolutions. According to The Guardian “Follow This leads investor rebellions […] to tackle global heating”.

Follow This mission is that shareholders support oil and gas companies to drive the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables. The Follow This Climate Resolutions support oil and gas companies to set Paris-consistent reduction targets for all emissions, including Scope 3 (product emissions). Thanks to the votes of institutional investors for the Follow This Climate Resolutions, Shell, Equinor, BP, Phillips 66, and Chevron reluctantly set ambitions to reduce their product emissions (Scope 3).

Mark van Baal (The Hague, 1968) studied Mechanical Engineering in Delft, was a conscript navy officer, account manager and energy journalist before he founded Follow This in 2015. He lives in Amsterdam with his wife Marijke and their son Barend.

Watch an interview of Christiane Amanpour with Mark van Baal.