Just Share

Salary in, debit orders out. Retail banking in a nutshell. In the background though, your bank account is doing far more than you think. The money in your account is not sitting idly under a mattress. Banks do not store money. They allocate it. Every rand deposited helps fund loans and investments that shape the real economy. That includes decisions that will determine the pace and direction of the energy transition.

This article was first published by African Energy Risk Signals on 29 June 2026. For more than a decade, Shell has argued in court that it did not control its Nigerian subsidiary and therefore could not be held responsible for the environmental damage caused there. Newly released internal documents tell a different story.

Every June, South Africa has the same conversation. Youth unemployment is too high. Young people need opportunities. Government must act. Business must invest. We honour the generation of 1976 and recommit ourselves to building a better future. Then the speeches end, the statistics are filed away, and millions of young people return to a labour market that has little place for them. Yes, this is one of those Youth Month articles about unemployment.

South African banks are increasingly keen to celebrate their role in financing renewable energy. They publish glossy reports. They highlight headline numbers. They position themselves as leaders in the transition. At one level, this is welcome. We need far more capital flowing into renewable energy. Banks have a critical role to play in that shift. But there is a growing problem. Many banks now treat increased investment in renewables as proof that they are decarbonising. It is not.

Just Share welcomes the operationalisation of the long-awaited sections 30A and 30B of the Companies Amendment Act as a step in the right direction in addressing the lack of pay transparency at JSE-listed companies. The Act introduces significant remuneration disclosure and shareholder accountability requirements for public and state-owned companies in South Africa.

This article was first published in the Financial Mail on 14 May 2026. Shareholder voting sits at the heart of responsible investment. Asset managers often describe proxy voting as one of their most powerful tools to influence company behaviour. They publish documents that set out how they will vote on issues such as board composition, remuneration and environmental and social matters. These documents signal how investors intend to use the authority entrusted to them by clients.

An edited version of this op-ed was first published by Business Day on 11 May 2026. The gig economy works perfectly. Just not for workers. There has been a profound shift in South Africa’s world of work, driven by the rapid expansion of platform-based labour in an increasingly digital economy. Jobs that once followed a clear and stable structure are becoming more uncertain, with less clarity about who the employer is and what protections workers can rely on.

FirstRand’s Notice of Annual General Meeting, released on 8 October 2019, includes two climate risk shareholder resolutions proposed by the RAITH Foundation and non-profit shareholder activism organisation Just Share. FirstRand is the second South African company to table climate risk-related shareholder resolutions. The first was Standard Bank in April 2019.

In an unprecedented move, a group of six leading South African institutional investors recently joined forces as co-filers of a climate risk shareholder resolution. The resolution sought to compel JSE listed fossil fuel producer Sasol to report on how its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction strategy aligns with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The group was supported by shareholder activist organisation Just Share in the early stages of this process.

Standard Bank, Africa’s largest bank by assets, today released its Thermal Coal Mining Policy. Standard Bank is the first South African bank to publicly release a policy on lending to coal mining projects. The move follows a landmark shareholder vote in favour of a climate risk-related shareholder resolution which was tabled at the bank’s May 2019 Annual General Meeting.