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

A senior safety consultant has stop working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil gas producer in a bombshell public video of inflicting “extreme harms” to the setting.

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

The executive, who works for the independent 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 said she had quit due to Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline firm of “working beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not placing environmental safety earlier than production”.

She mentioned: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable however they are completely failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gasoline extraction causes excessive harms, to our local weather, to the environment and to people. And no matter they are saying, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”

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

Shell was a “main consumer” of Dennett’s enterprise, which specialises in evaluating security procedures in high-risk industries including oil and gasoline manufacturing. She began 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 of the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round internet zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gas, however planning to explore and extract much more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Insurrection local weather protesters urging the company’s staff to go away. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing venture encourages oil and gasoline employees to walk away from the business.

The advisor, who runs inner security surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to walk away and “many individuals working in fossil gasoline companies just aren’t so lucky”.

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean vitality sector left amid reviews 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 reduce emissions will likely be mentioned at the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Follow This may push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be more in line with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has instructed traders to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set more stringent climate 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 government, Ben van Beurden, could experience an investor insurrection against his £13.5m pay packet on the AGM after the investment adviser Pirc urged a vote towards it.

Sign up to the daily Business Right now electronic mail or observe Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little question, we are decided to ship on our world technique to be a net zero company by 2050 and thousands of our persons are working exhausting to realize this. We have now 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, though the world will nonetheless want oil and gasoline for many years to come in sectors that can’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the vitality industry reported bumper earnings fuelled by the rise in market costs, prompting opposition events to name on the government to usher in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the largest oil and gas producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it might lead to the industry approving fewer tasks.

Harbour Energy’s chief govt, Linda Cook dinner, instructed the Monetary Occasions: “A higher tax burden will make it tougher for new oil and gasoline initiatives to satisfy investment hurdle charges, that means fewer projects shall be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when industry is being inspired to increase home UK oil and gas manufacturing and assist an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has told the 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 whats up” from the firm.