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

A senior safety marketing consultant has stop 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 climate change dangers” and urged others in the oil and gas business to “walk away whereas there’s nonetheless time”.

The executive, who works for the independent 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 because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline agency of “operating past the design limits of our planetary methods” and “not putting environmental safety earlier than manufacturing”.

She stated: “Shell’s stated safety ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Objective Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable but they are fully failing on it.

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

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

Shell was a “main shopper” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating security procedures in high-risk industries including oil and gasoline manufacturing. 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 the alarms and dismisses the dangers of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round internet zero, they don't seem to be winding down on oil and gas, but planning to explore and extract much more.”

Dennett – a prison justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Rise up local weather protesters urging the corporate’s staff to leave. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing challenge encourages oil and fuel employees to walk away from the trade.

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

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really imagine their vision for more oil and gas extraction secures a safe future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean energy sector left amid reviews they have been frustrated on the tempo 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 cut back emissions will probably be discussed on the meeting where the Dutch activist group Follow This can push for the company’s insurance policies to be more in line with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has informed buyers to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent local weather goals.

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

The Shell chief govt, Ben van Beurden, could experience an investor riot against his £13.5m pay packet at the AGM after the funding adviser Pirc urged a vote in opposition to it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little question, we are decided to ship on our international strategy to be a web zero company by 2050 and thousands of our persons are working onerous to achieve this. We now have set targets for the brief, medium and long run, and have each intention of hitting them.

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

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the vitality business reported bumper earnings fuelled by the increase in market costs, prompting opposition parties to name on the federal government to usher in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the most important oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it would result in the industry approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Vitality’s chief executive, Linda Cook dinner, instructed the Monetary Times: “The next tax burden will make it more challenging for new oil and fuel tasks to fulfill funding hurdle charges, meaning fewer initiatives shall be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when industry is being inspired to extend domestic UK oil and gas production and support an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has informed the federal government it plans to take a position $6bn in the North Sea over three years as business makes its case against the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had received a £4.6m “golden good day” from the agency.