Shell marketing consultant quits, accusing agency of ‘excessive harms’ to environment | Shell

A senior security marketing consultant has give up working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil gas producer in a bombshell public video of causing “extreme harms” to the environment.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change dangers” and urged others within the oil and gasoline business to “walk away whereas there’s nonetheless time”.

The executive, who works for the unbiased agency Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 staff. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she stated she had stop due to Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel firm of “working past the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental safety earlier than manufacturing”.

She stated: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Aim Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable but they're utterly failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and fuel extraction causes extreme harms, to our local weather, to our surroundings and to folks. And whatever they are saying, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett told the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m able to cope with the implications.”

Shell was a “major consumer” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries including oil and gas production. She started working with Shell in the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the industry.

“I can not work for a company that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round web zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gas, but planning to discover and extract much more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Riot climate protesters urging the corporate’s staff to leave. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and gasoline employees to stroll away from the industry.

The advisor, who runs internal security surveys and relies in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to stroll away and “many people working in fossil fuel firms just aren’t so lucky”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they actually consider their imaginative and prescient for extra oil and fuel extraction secures a safe future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear power sector left amid studies they have been annoyed on the pace of Shell’s shift in the direction of greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to reduce emissions will be mentioned at the assembly where the Dutch activist group Follow This may push for the corporate’s policies to be more in line with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has informed traders to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set extra stringent local weather objectives.

The Shell investor Royal London has mentioned it intends to abstain on a vote on the firm’s climate transition proposals.

The Shell chief government, Ben van Beurden, could experience an investor rise up towards his £13.5m pay packet at the AGM after the investment adviser Pirc urged a vote towards it.

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A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little question, we are decided to deliver on our world strategy to be a web zero company by 2050 and hundreds of our persons are working laborious to realize this. We have now set targets for the short, medium and long term, and have each intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon vitality, though the world will still need oil and gasoline for decades to come in sectors that can’t be easily decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to household payments after the power business reported bumper income fuelled by the rise in market prices, prompting opposition events to call on the government to herald a one-off levy.

On Monday, the largest oil and gas producer within the North Sea spoke out in opposition to a one-off levy, arguing it will lead to the business approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Energy’s chief government, Linda Cook dinner, instructed the Financial Instances: “The next tax burden will make it more difficult for brand spanking new oil and gas projects to satisfy funding hurdle rates, meaning fewer initiatives will be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when trade is being inspired to extend home UK oil and fuel production and support an orderly energy transition.”

Harbour has advised the federal government it plans to invest $6bn within the North Sea over three years as business makes its case in opposition to the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had obtained a £4.6m “golden howdy” from the firm.