Shell 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 inflicting “excessive harms” to the surroundings.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change dangers” and urged others within the oil and fuel trade to “walk away while there’s still time”.

The chief, who works for the impartial 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 said she had give up because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline firm of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary methods” and “not placing environmental safety earlier than production”.

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

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

Dennett advised 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 implications.”

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

“I can no longer work for an organization that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “As a result of, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round net zero, they are not winding down on oil and gasoline, but planning to explore and extract far more.”

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Revolt climate protesters urging the corporate’s workers to go away. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing project encourages oil and gas employees to stroll away from the trade.

The marketing consultant, who runs internal security surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to walk away and “many people working in fossil gasoline corporations just aren’t so fortunate”.

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear power sector left amid experiences they have been pissed off 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 might be discussed at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Comply with This will push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be extra in keeping with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has advised investors to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent local weather objectives.

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

The Shell chief government, Ben van Beurden, may expertise an investor revolt against 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 said: “Be in no doubt, we are decided to ship on our world technique to be a web zero company by 2050 and thousands of our individuals are working onerous to realize this. We've got set targets for the quick, medium and long run, and have each intention of hitting them.

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

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household payments after the vitality industry reported bumper earnings 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 largest oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it would lead to the industry approving fewer tasks.

Harbour Energy’s chief govt, Linda Cook dinner, instructed the Financial Occasions: “The next tax burden will make it more challenging for brand new oil and fuel projects to meet investment hurdle charges, which means fewer tasks will be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when industry is being inspired to increase home UK oil and fuel 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 business makes its case towards the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook dinner had acquired a £4.6m “golden howdy” from the agency.