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

A senior safety advisor has quit working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of causing “excessive 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 still time”.

The manager, who works for the unbiased company Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 employees. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she stated she had give up because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gas firm of “working beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not placing environmental security before production”.

She said: “Shell’s stated safety ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Objective Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable but they're completely failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and fuel extraction causes excessive harms, to our climate, to our surroundings and to people. And whatever they are saying, Shell is solely 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 ready 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 began working with Shell within the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the trade.

“I can no longer work for an organization that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around internet zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, however planning to discover and extract much more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Rise up local weather protesters urging the corporate’s staff to depart. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing venture encourages oil and fuel workers to stroll away from the business.

The advisor, who runs internal safety surveys and relies in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to stroll away and “many people working in fossil fuel companies simply aren’t so fortunate”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves if they actually consider their vision for more oil and fuel extraction secures a secure future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear vitality sector left amid reviews they have been annoyed on the pace 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 will likely be discussed at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Follow This will push for the company’s policies to be more per the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has told investors to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent climate targets.

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

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

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little question, we are decided to ship on our international technique to be a net zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our people are working onerous to achieve this. We have now set targets for the brief, medium and long run, and have every intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon power, although the world will still need oil and gas for decades 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 vitality trade reported bumper earnings fuelled by the rise in market prices, prompting opposition events to call on the government to usher in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gasoline producer in the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it might result in the trade approving fewer tasks.

Harbour Vitality’s chief government, Linda Cook, told the Monetary Times: “A better tax burden will make it more difficult for brand new oil and gas tasks to fulfill funding hurdle rates, meaning fewer tasks will be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when business is being inspired to increase home UK oil and gasoline manufacturing and assist an orderly power transition.”

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