Brief CommunicationPublished: 09 October 2025Marcel Llavero-Pasquina ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7055-08121,2 &Antonio Bontempi ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7257-83603 Nature Sustainability (2025)Cite this articleSubjectsBusinessCarbon and energyEnergy policyEnergy supply and demandPower stationsAbstractOil and gas companies have claimed to be part of the transition to renewable energy. Our analysis of the energy assets of 250 of the largest oil and gas companies finds a marginal contribution to global renewable energy deployment and that renewable generation represents a tiny proportion of the total energy production of these companies. This study empirically legitimizes doubts about the commitment of the industry to transition to low-carbon energy production.This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institutionAccess optionsAccess Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journalsGet Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription27,99 € / 30 dayscancel any timeLearn moreSubscribe to this journalReceive 12 digital issues and online access to articles118,99 € per yearonly 9,92 € per issueLearn moreBuy this articlePurchase on SpringerLinkInstant access to full article PDFBuy nowPrices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkoutFig. 1: Share of global renewable energy capacity owned by the largest 250 oil and gas companies.Fig. 2: Share of primary energy generated from renewable sources by the largest 250 oil and gas companies.Data availabilityData have been sourced from public online databases including Urgewald Global Oil and Gas Exit List 2024 (https://gogel.org/) and GEM wind February 2025 version (https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-wind-power-tracker/download-data/), solar February 2025 version (https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-solar-power-tracker/download-data/), hydropower April 2024 version (https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-hydropower-tracker/download-data/) and geothermal trackers September 2024 version (https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-geothermal-power-tracker/download-data/). Additional data on company ownership have been sourced from Refinitiv Eikon (https://eikon.refinitiv.com/), a subscription-based product. The minimum corporate ownership information to replicate the analysis is provided in Supplementary Table 4, but the product licence terms do not allow for a full release of the raw data. Source data are provided with this paper.Code availabilityThe R code is available via GitHub at https://github.com/llavero-pasquina/Oil-and-gas-industry-s-marginal-share-of-global-renewable-energy.ReferencesVan Asselt, H. & Green, F. COP26 and the dynamics of anti-fossil fuel norms. WIREs Clim. Change 14, e816 (2023).Article Google Scholar Guo, Y., Yang, Y., Bradshaw, M., Wang, C. & Blondeel, M. Globalization and decarbonization: changing strategies of global oil and gas companies. WIREs Clim. Change 14, e849 (2023).Article Google Scholar Halttunen, K., Slade, R. & Staffell, I. 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Salas fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Universities, from the Holberg Price 2023 awarded to J. Martínez-Alier, from the Maria de Maeztu grant (CEX2019-000940-M) awarded to ICTA-UAB by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, from the Ford Foundation (Grant 150866) and from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación - Gobierno de España (Grant TED2021-132007B-I00). A.B. acknowledges funding from the FI-SDUR 2020 464 scholarship awarded by the Catalan AGAUR Agency.Author informationAuthors and AffiliationsInstitute of Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB); Edifici ICTA-ICP, Carrer de les Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, SpainMarcel Llavero-PasquinaDepartament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, SpainMarcel Llavero-PasquinaGeography Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, SpainAntonio BontempiAuthorsMarcel Llavero-PasquinaView author publicationsSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarAntonio BontempiView author publicationsSearch author on:PubMed Google ScholarContributionsM.L.P. conceptualized, designed and performed the analysis. M.L.P. produced the figures and tables. M.L.P. and A.B. contributed to data collection. A.B. assisted in the analysis. Both authors wrote the paper.Corresponding authorCorrespondence to Marcel Llavero-Pasquina.Ethics declarationsCompeting interestsThe authors declare no competing interests.Peer reviewPeer review informationNature Sustainability thanks H. Heede and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.Additional informationPublisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Extended dataExtended Data Fig. 1 Company operating renewable energy ranking coloured by type of company.Aggregated data from Supplementary Table 5.Source dataExtended Data Fig. 2 Map of utility-scale renewable energy projects owned by the world largest 250 oil and gas companies, their subsidiaries and acquisitions.Panel a) shows the unique projects currently in operation (n = 1107), while panel b) shows unique projects in construction, pre-construction or announced (n = 899). Points are colour coded by technology and the size of the point is proportional to the ownership-adjusted installed capacity (total 78 GW in operation and 320 GW in the pipeline). The list of projects can be consulted in Supplementary Table 5. Basemap from OpenStreetMap.Source dataExtended Data Fig. 3 Percentage of projects participated by the largest 250 oil and gas companies by technology and project size.The percentage of projects with one or more oil and gas company owners (black) is given above its respective bar. The figures are calculated based on Global Energy Monitor (GEM) data, which tracks utility scale power plants only. The total number of projects documented in GEM for each category is given in brackets under each column, and next to the power capacity ranges of each category.Source dataExtended Data Fig. 4 Share of global renewable energy capacity owned by the largest 250 oil and gas companies and their sister companies.The percentage refers to the aggregate contribution by oil and gas companies, their acquisitions, and sister companies. Sister companies are defined as companies owned by the controlling parent of an oil and gas company. 94% of renewable capacity from sister companies can be attributed to Chinese state-owned power companies (Supplementary Table 1).Source dataExtended Data Fig. 5 Company operating renewable energy ranking coloured by technology.Full figures in Supplementary Table 2.Source dataExtended Data Fig. 6 Schematic methodology.Data input (green) and outputs (blue) are highlighted. Main figures are shown in a rectangle.Supplementary informationSupplementary InformationSupplementary Methods.Reporting SummarySupplementary TablesSupplementary Tables 1–6.Source dataSource Data Fig. 1a and Extended Data Fig. 4Aggregate capacity figures for each section of the piecharts.Source Data Fig. 1bAggregate capacity figures for each section of the piecharts.Source Data Fig. 2Aggregate energy extraction figures for each company and energy source.Source Data Extended Data Fig. 1Renewable energy capacity figures by company and technology.Source Data Extended Data Fig. 2Renewable energy projects with longitude, latitude, equity capacity, status and technology attributes.Source Data Extended Data Fig. 3GEM project counts by technology, capacity range and oil and gas owners.Source Data Extended Data Fig. 5Renewable energy capacity figures by company and type of ownership.Rights and permissionsSpringer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.Reprints and permissionsAbout this article