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

A senior security guide 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 surroundings.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change risks” and urged others in the oil and gas business to “walk away while 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 workers. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she mentioned she had quit due to Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

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

She said: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Aim 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 people. And no matter they say, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett advised 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 “major client” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries including oil and fuel 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 of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around net zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to explore and extract rather more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her profession in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Revolt local weather protesters urging the corporate’s staff to go away. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing challenge encourages oil and gas employees to walk away from the industry.

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

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear power sector left amid experiences they were pissed off on 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 cut back emissions will probably be mentioned on the meeting the place the Dutch activist group Follow It will push for the company’s policies to be more consistent with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has told buyers to reject the group’s decision 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 agency’s climate transition proposals.

The Shell chief government, Ben van Beurden, could experience an investor rebel in opposition to 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 mentioned: “Be in little question, we are decided to ship on our world strategy to be a net zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our people are working hard to achieve this. We have now set targets for the short, 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 want oil and fuel for many years to come in sectors that may’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the vitality 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 most important oil and gasoline producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it might result in the industry approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Power’s chief executive, Linda Cook dinner, advised the Monetary Times: “The next tax burden will make it more challenging for new oil and gas projects to meet funding hurdle charges, which means fewer initiatives might be sanctioned.

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

Harbour has advised the federal government it plans to speculate $6bn within the North Sea over three years as trade makes its case against the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had obtained a £4.6m “golden hey” from the firm.