Shell marketing consultant quits, accusing firm of ‘extreme harms’ to atmosphere | Shell

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

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

The executive, 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 mentioned she had stop because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline agency of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental security before production”.

She mentioned: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Aim Zero’, they name it – and it sounds honourable but they are fully failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gasoline extraction causes excessive harms, to our climate, to the environment and to people. And no matter they say, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”

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

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

“I can now 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, contrary to Shell’s public expressions around web zero, they don't seem to be winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to explore and extract far more.”

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was impressed to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Insurrection climate protesters urging the corporate’s workers to depart. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing project encourages oil and fuel workers to stroll away from the trade.

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

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe their imaginative and prescient for extra oil and fuel extraction secures a safe future for humanity”.

In late 2020, several Shell executives in its clean energy sector left amid experiences they had been pissed off on the tempo 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 reduce emissions will likely be mentioned at the assembly where the Dutch activist group Follow This will push for the company’s policies to be more according to the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has instructed buyers to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent local weather targets.

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

The Shell chief executive, Ben van Beurden, may expertise an investor revolt against his £13.5m pay packet at the AGM after the funding adviser Pirc urged a vote towards it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in no doubt, we're decided to ship on our world strategy to be a web zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our persons are working laborious to achieve this. We now have set targets for the brief, 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 gas for many years to come back in sectors that can’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the power trade reported bumper income fuelled by the rise in market prices, prompting opposition parties to name on the federal government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gas producer in the North Sea spoke out in opposition to a one-off levy, arguing it could lead to the trade approving fewer tasks.

Harbour Energy’s chief government, Linda Cook, informed the Monetary Instances: “The next tax burden will make it more challenging for brand new oil and gasoline projects to satisfy investment hurdle rates, which means fewer projects shall be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when industry is being encouraged to increase home UK oil and fuel manufacturing and support an orderly energy transition.”

Harbour has told the federal government it plans to invest $6bn in the North Sea over three years as industry makes its case towards the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had acquired a £4.6m “golden hiya” from the agency.