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

A senior safety advisor has give up working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of inflicting “extreme harms” to the atmosphere.

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

The executive, who works for the impartial 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 quit 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 techniques” and “not putting environmental safety before manufacturing”.

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

“They know that continued oil and fuel extraction causes excessive harms, to our climate, to the environment and to people. 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 could not carry that any longer, and I’m able to deal with the consequences.”

Shell was a “major consumer” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating security procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and gasoline production. She began 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 company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she stated. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round web zero, they are not winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to explore and extract rather more.”

Dennett – a prison justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Riot climate protesters urging the corporate’s employees to depart. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing challenge encourages oil and gas workers to walk away from the industry.

The consultant, who runs internal safety surveys and relies 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 in the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe their imaginative and prescient for extra oil and gasoline extraction secures a secure future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean energy sector left amid studies they had been pissed off at 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 reduce emissions can be discussed at the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Follow It will push for the corporate’s policies to be extra according to the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has told traders to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent local weather targets.

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

The Shell chief government, Ben van Beurden, may experience an investor riot towards his £13.5m pay packet on the AGM after the funding adviser Pirc urged a vote towards it.

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A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little question, we're decided to ship on our international strategy to be a net zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our persons are working onerous to achieve this. We've set targets for the short, medium and long term, 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 also faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to household payments after the energy industry reported bumper profits fuelled by the increase in market prices, prompting opposition events to call on the federal government to herald a one-off levy.

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

Harbour Vitality’s chief govt, Linda Cook dinner, instructed the Monetary Instances: “A higher tax burden will make it more difficult for brand new oil and fuel projects to fulfill investment hurdle charges, which means fewer tasks will probably be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when business is being encouraged to extend home UK oil and fuel production and support an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has informed the government it plans to speculate $6bn in the North Sea over three years as business makes its case in opposition to the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had received a £4.6m “golden whats up” from the agency.