Woodside loses status as College fossil fuel partner
The Australian firm, historically a minor funder of Imperial-based research, still pledges to expand its oil and gas business.
Woodside Energy, an Australian-based oil and gas company, can no longer enter research contracts with Imperial, after failing to pass the 2026 Imperial Zero Index (IZI), an annual benchmarking exercise introduced by the College last year to determine which fossil fuel companies it can partner with.
The six other firms that made the 2025 IZI – BP, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Petronas, Shell and TotalEnergies – have been retained for another year of continued academic engagement, meaning they can still fund Imperial research supporting the green transition. Imperial’s “gateway” metric for collaboration is a pledge to reach net zero by 2050.
Although Woodside has announced plans to invest limited amounts of money into renewables and liquid hydrogen ventures, its energy production and revenue come almost exclusively from fossil fuel exploitation. In spite of setting a Net Zero target, the company’s fossil fuel production has more than doubled since 2021, and it plans to expand its oil and gas production by 50% by 2032.
Historically, Woodside has also been Imperial’s least important partner out of all IZI-approved fossil fuel companies. Research funding from Woodside accounted for less than 0.35% of the total spent by IZI-2025 companies between 2016 and 2022.
A spokesperson for Woodside said: “Woodside engaged with Imperial College on its 2026 Zero Index benchmark and appreciates the opportunity to continue to do so constructively.”
One down
Students had asked for other companies with non-credible Net Zero commitments to be excluded from the IZI list. A paper passed by Union Council in December called for the university to disengage with TotalEnergies after a French court ruled that some of the company’s carbon neutrality pledges were “misleading”.
The paper also demanded that the calculations used by the College to assess companies be disclosed. Currently, Imperial invites readers “to calculate” these metrics themselves, based on a 20-page methodology guide and a 19-page data source register. Imperial says publishing the thresholds and calculations may contravene their legal and licensing obligations, including an agreement not to republish data from the Carbon Disclosure Project, one IZI source.
ICU’s Ethics & Environment Officer Julia Mitra, who authored the paper, says the College has not yet responded to its demands. “I am disappointed but not surprised,” she told Felix. “I had hoped for the paper to open a door to discussion for students and the administration to work together, continually improve the policy, and eventually expand it across other industries.”
