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

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

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change risks” and urged others in the oil and gas industry to “walk away whereas there’s still time”.

The manager, who works for the unbiased agency 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 stop due to Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gas agency of “operating past the design limits of our planetary programs” and “not putting environmental security before production”.

She said: “Shell’s stated security ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Aim Zero’, they name it – and it sounds honourable however they are completely failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes excessive harms, to our climate, to the environment and to people. And whatever they are saying, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett informed the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m able to take care of the results.”

Shell was a “major consumer” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries together with 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 corporation that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “Because, opposite to Shell’s public expressions round internet zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to explore and extract rather more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was impressed to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rise up climate protesters urging the company’s employees to go away. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and fuel workers to stroll away from the business.

The consultant, 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 corporations simply aren’t so fortunate”.

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean power sector left amid experiences they were annoyed on the pace of Shell’s shift in direction of greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to cut back emissions will likely be mentioned on the meeting where the Dutch activist group Follow This may push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be extra consistent with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has advised traders to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent climate objectives.

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

The Shell chief government, Ben van Beurden, could expertise an investor insurrection against his £13.5m pay packet at the AGM after the investment adviser Pirc urged a vote in opposition to it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little doubt, we're determined to deliver on our international technique to be a net zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our people are working laborious to realize this. We have now set targets for the quick, medium and long term, and have each intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon power, although the world will still need oil and fuel for decades to return in sectors that may’t be easily decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the energy business reported bumper profits fuelled by the increase in market costs, prompting opposition events to call on the government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gasoline producer within the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it might result in the industry approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Power’s chief executive, Linda Cook, instructed the Financial Occasions: “A better tax burden will make it more challenging for new oil and gasoline tasks to fulfill investment hurdle charges, which means fewer projects will probably be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when trade is being encouraged to increase home UK oil and gasoline manufacturing and help an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has instructed the government it plans to take a position $6bn within the North Sea over three years as industry makes its case against the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had obtained a £4.6m “golden hello” from the agency.