Shell advisor quits, accusing firm of ‘extreme harms’ to environment | Shell

A senior security marketing consultant has give up working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil gas producer in a bombshell public video of causing “excessive harms” to the setting.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change risks” and urged others in the oil and fuel business to “stroll away while there’s still time”.

The executive, who works for the impartial 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 because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline agency of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental safety before manufacturing”.

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

“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes excessive harms, to our local weather, to our surroundings and to folks. And whatever they are saying, Shell is just not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett informed the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, including: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m ready to take care of the consequences.”

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

“I can no longer work for a company that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around internet zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to explore and extract way more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Rise up local weather protesters urging the corporate’s workers to go away. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing mission encourages oil and gasoline staff to stroll away from the trade.

The marketing consultant, who runs internal security surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to walk away and “many people working in fossil fuel corporations just aren’t so lucky”.

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

In late 2020, several Shell executives in its clear vitality sector left amid studies they have been frustrated at the pace of Shell’s shift in the direction of greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to reduce emissions will be mentioned at the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Observe It will push for the company’s insurance policies to be more in line with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has advised traders to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent local weather objectives.

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

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

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A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little doubt, we are decided to deliver on our international strategy to be a web zero company by 2050 and hundreds of our individuals are working exhausting to realize this. We've got set targets for the quick, medium and long term, and have each intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon vitality, though the world will nonetheless want oil and gasoline for decades to come in sectors that can’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the power business reported bumper profits fuelled by the increase in market prices, prompting opposition parties to call on the government to herald a one-off levy.

On Monday, the largest oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it could result in the trade approving fewer projects.

Harbour Energy’s chief govt, Linda Cook, advised the Monetary Instances: “A higher tax burden will make it tougher for brand spanking new oil and fuel projects to fulfill funding hurdle charges, that means fewer initiatives will be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when industry is being inspired to extend domestic UK oil and gasoline production and support an orderly vitality 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 towards the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had acquired a £4.6m “golden howdy” from the agency.