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

A senior safety marketing consultant has quit 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 risks” and urged others in the oil and gasoline business to “walk away whereas there’s still time”.

The manager, 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 said she had stop because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gas agency of “working past the design limits of our planetary programs” and “not putting environmental security before production”.

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

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

Dennett informed the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m ready to take care of the implications.”

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

“I can not 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 web zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, but planning to discover and extract much more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rebel local weather protesters urging the company’s workers to leave. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and fuel workers to stroll away from the industry.

The consultant, who runs inner security surveys and is based in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to stroll away and “many individuals working in fossil fuel corporations just aren’t so fortunate”.

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear vitality sector left amid reports they have been frustrated 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 might be mentioned at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Follow It will push for the company’s insurance policies to be more according to the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has told traders to reject the group’s decision 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 govt, Ben van Beurden, could expertise an investor revolt 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 said: “Be in no doubt, we are determined to ship on our international strategy to be a net zero firm by 2050 and thousands of our persons are working laborious to attain 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 energy, although the world will still want oil and fuel for decades to return in sectors that may’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the vitality trade reported bumper income fuelled by the increase in market prices, prompting opposition parties to name on the federal government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gasoline producer within the North Sea spoke out in opposition to a one-off levy, arguing it would result in the trade approving fewer tasks.

Harbour Energy’s chief government, Linda Prepare dinner, advised the Financial Instances: “A higher tax burden will make it more difficult for brand new oil and gas initiatives to fulfill funding hurdle rates, that means fewer projects shall be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when industry is being inspired to extend domestic UK oil and fuel manufacturing and support an orderly energy transition.”

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