Shell marketing consultant quits, accusing firm of ‘excessive harms’ to environment | 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 causing “excessive harms” to the surroundings.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change risks” and urged others within the oil and gas industry to “stroll away whereas there’s still 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 workers. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she stated she had stop due to Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel agency of “operating past the design limits of our planetary techniques” and “not placing environmental security earlier than production”.

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

“They know that continued oil and fuel extraction causes excessive harms, to our local weather, to our surroundings and to people. And no matter they say, Shell is just not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett informed the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, including: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m able to cope with the results.”

Shell was a “major consumer” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating security procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and gasoline manufacturing. She started 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 a company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the risks of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she said. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around net zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, however planning to explore and extract much more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was inspired to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Revolt local weather protesters urging the company’s employees to leave. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing mission encourages oil and fuel workers to walk away from the industry.

The marketing consultant, who runs internal safety surveys and is based in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to stroll away and “many people working in fossil fuel firms just aren’t so fortunate”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they actually imagine their vision for extra oil and gas extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, several Shell executives in its clear power sector left amid reports they had been frustrated on the tempo 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 mentioned at the meeting the place the Dutch activist group Observe It will push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be more in keeping with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has told investors to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent local weather goals.

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

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

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little doubt, we are determined to ship on our world technique to be a web zero firm by 2050 and thousands of our individuals are working laborious to realize this. Now we have 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, although the world will nonetheless need oil and gasoline for many years to return in sectors that can’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household payments after the vitality trade reported bumper earnings fuelled by the increase in market prices, prompting opposition events to name on the federal government to usher in 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 result in the trade approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Power’s chief executive, Linda Cook, told the Monetary Times: “A better tax burden will make it more challenging for brand spanking new oil and gasoline projects to satisfy funding hurdle rates, which means fewer projects will likely be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when industry is being encouraged to extend domestic UK oil and fuel manufacturing and assist an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has informed the government it plans to take a position $6bn within 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.