Britain’s biggest asset manager says it will vote to remove Richard Goyder as chairman of Australian oil and gas giant Woodside as a shareholder backlash continues building against the board for refusing to do more to tackle global warming.

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), which manages more than $2.3 trillion, flagged its intention to vote against Goyder’s re-election at Woodside’s annual investor meeting next week, saying the board was “lagging our minimum expectations” on climate change.

The London-based insurer and asset manager will also vote down Woodside’s climate transition and action plan – the company’s strategy for how it intends to curb emissions and keep operating in a carbon-constrained world.

LGIM’s decision will add to pressure facing Woodside from a growing number of powerful critics, including institutional investors and proxy advisers, who argue the climate targets are too weak, and point to its ongoing lack of “tangible plans” to tackle the vast carbon footprint of the customers it fuels around the world. While the vote on the climate plan is not binding, its rejection would mark an embarrassing blow for the board of the Perth-based company after it spent two years engaging with shareholders to improve its strategy.

The last time Woodside put its climate report to vote in 2022, it suffered an extraordinary rebuke as 49 per cent of investors refused to endorse it – the biggest backlash ever recorded at a so-called “say on climate” shareholder vote globally.

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LGIM on Wednesday noted that some progress had been made in Woodside’s updated climate plan, but it did not believe those changes were material enough, and still considered the overall strategy “insufficiently robust”.

“While we view in a positive light some of the steps that have been taken by Woodside, primarily around methane, and in better aligning executive compensation to climate-related targets, we remain concerned about the insufficiently robust emissions targets, lack of quantifiable disclosure on climate-related risks and the quantum of capital to be allocated to low carbon solutions,” LGIM said.

As the April 24 ballot looms, three of the four biggest proxy advisers that guide investors on how to vote – CGI Glass Lewis, Institutional Shareholder Service (ISS) and the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) – also say they do not believe Woodside’s climate plan has been improved enough, and are recommending rejecting it once again.