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

A senior safety guide has stop 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 trade to “stroll away while there’s still time”.

The chief, who works for the unbiased company Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 staff. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she said she had give up due to Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel firm of “working beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental safety before production”.

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

“They know that continued oil and gasoline extraction causes extreme harms, to our climate, to our environment and to people. And whatever they say, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”

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

Shell was a “main consumer” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and gasoline 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 of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around net zero, they don't seem to be winding down on oil and gasoline, but planning to explore and extract way more.”

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was impressed to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rebel local weather protesters urging the corporate’s staff to depart. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing project encourages oil and fuel employees to walk away from the trade.

The marketing consultant, who runs inner 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 gas firms simply aren’t so lucky”.

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean power sector left amid studies they have been frustrated at the tempo 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 will likely be mentioned at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Comply with This can push for the company’s insurance policies to be more in step with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has instructed traders to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent climate objectives.

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

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

Sign up to the daily Business At the moment electronic mail or observe Guardian Enterprise on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little doubt, we're determined to deliver on our world technique to be a net zero firm by 2050 and hundreds of our persons are working arduous to achieve this. Now we have set targets for the quick, medium and long run, and have every 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 many years 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 call on the federal government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the largest oil and fuel producer within the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it could lead to the industry approving fewer projects.

Harbour Energy’s chief executive, Linda Prepare dinner, told the Financial Times: “The next tax burden will make it more difficult for new oil and gasoline initiatives to satisfy funding hurdle rates, that means fewer initiatives will likely be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when business is being encouraged to extend home UK oil and gasoline production and support an orderly power transition.”

Harbour has informed the government it plans to speculate $6bn in 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 acquired a £4.6m “golden hiya” from the firm.