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

A senior safety advisor has stop working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of inflicting “excessive harms” to the setting.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change risks” and urged others in the oil and gasoline business to “stroll away whereas there’s nonetheless time”.

The manager, who works for the impartial company Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 workers. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she mentioned she had quit because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel firm of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not placing environmental security earlier than production”.

She said: “Shell’s acknowledged security ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Aim Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable however they are fully failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes excessive harms, to our local weather, to our surroundings and to people. And whatever they say, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett instructed the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m ready to cope with the results.”

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

“I can no longer work for a corporation that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “As a result of, contrary to Shell’s public expressions around net zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gasoline, but planning to explore and extract far more.”

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Rise up climate protesters urging the company’s workers to leave. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing project encourages oil and gasoline employees to walk away from the industry.

The advisor, who runs inner safety surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to stroll away and “many people working in fossil gasoline firms just aren’t so lucky”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves if they actually believe 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 clean power sector left amid stories they had been annoyed at the tempo of Shell’s shift towards greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to reduce emissions shall be mentioned at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Observe This can push for the company’s policies to be more according to 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 said it intends to abstain on a vote on the agency’s climate transition proposals.

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

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little question, we are determined to deliver on our international technique to be a net zero company by 2050 and hundreds of our persons are working laborious to attain 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 want oil and gas for decades to return in sectors that can’t be easily decarbonised.”

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

On Monday, the most important oil and gasoline producer within the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it might lead to the business approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Energy’s chief executive, Linda Cook, instructed the Monetary Times: “A better tax burden will make it tougher for new oil and gasoline projects to satisfy investment hurdle charges, meaning fewer projects can be sanctioned.

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

Harbour has told the government it plans to speculate $6bn within the North Sea over three years as trade makes its case towards the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had obtained a £4.6m “golden hey” from the firm.