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

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

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change risks” and urged others within the oil and gas business to “walk away while there’s nonetheless time”.

The executive, who works for the independent agency 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 mentioned she had give up due to Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel firm of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary techniques” and “not placing environmental safety before production”.

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

“They know that continued oil and fuel extraction causes extreme harms, to our climate, to our surroundings and to individuals. And no matter they are saying, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett instructed the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m able to deal with the implications.”

Shell was a “main consumer” of Dennett’s enterprise, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and gas manufacturing. She began working with Shell in the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the business.

“I can not work for an organization that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she said. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions round net zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gasoline, but planning to discover and extract far more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was inspired to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Insurrection local weather protesters urging the company’s workers to leave. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing venture encourages oil and gasoline workers to stroll away from the business.

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

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they really imagine their imaginative and prescient for extra oil and fuel extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear energy sector left amid studies they had been annoyed 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 scale back emissions can be discussed at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Observe This will push for the company’s insurance policies to be more in step with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has advised buyers to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent climate objectives.

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

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

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A Shell spokesperson mentioned: “Be in little question, we're determined to ship on our international strategy to be a net zero firm by 2050 and 1000's of our persons are working onerous to realize this. We now have set targets for the short, 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 nonetheless want oil and gas for decades to come in sectors that can’t be easily decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the energy trade reported bumper profits fuelled by the increase in market costs, prompting opposition parties to call on the federal government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it would lead to the trade approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Vitality’s chief executive, Linda Prepare dinner, instructed the Financial Times: “A higher tax burden will make it more challenging for brand spanking new oil and fuel tasks to meet funding hurdle rates, which means fewer projects will probably be sanctioned.

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

Harbour has informed the federal government it plans to take a position $6bn in the North Sea over three years as industry makes its case against the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had received a £4.6m “golden hello” from the firm.