Caroline Dennett was in her 11th year as an operational safety consultant at oil giant Shell when she saw a news clip about a climate protest outside the UK headquarters. One of the protesters, from the group Extinction Rebellion, carried a sign that read “Insiders Wanted” and asked staff to come forward if they had anything to say.
She did. On Monday, Dennett said it as publicly as possible – she broke her contract with the company in an email sent to Shell’s executive committee over its hypocrisy on climate change. In her resignation letter, she accused Shell of “failing on a massive planetary scale” and noted that they “are not cutting back on oil and gas, but plan to explore and produce a lot more”.
Shell has pledged to reach net-zero emissions in less than 30 years and advertises its support for climate action in press releases and advertising. But the company continues to add new wells that all but ensure the world warms above 2 degrees Celsius.
Her letter of resignation states: “Shell operates beyond the design limitations of our planetary systems. Shell takes no action to mitigate the known risks. Shell does not put environmental protection before production.” She posted the accompanying video online:
Over the past decade, Dennett, who runs a small business that counted Shell among his largest customers, has surveyed 20,000 employees on at least 65 projects around the world to find weaknesses in the company’s security procedures. Her last assignment for Shell was the surveying of two new projects in the Niger Delta, a particularly polluted region of oil production in Nigeria.
When asked for comment on Dennett’s allegations, a Shell spokesman said: “There is no doubt that we are committed to executing our global strategy to be a net zero company by 2050 and thousands of our employees are working hard to achieve that.” The spokesman added, “We are already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon energy, even though the world will need oil and gas in sectors that cannot be easily decarbonized for decades to come.”
The oil industry’s role in climate change has created some notable recruitment problems for the oil giants, and their contractors, including PR agencies, are coming under increasing scrutiny. More and more are refusing to work for the industry at all. Last year, a 16-year-old Exxon engineer quit because of the company’s inaction on climate change. And Dennett’s email includes a plea for others to reconsider their role in working for big oil. “I’m happy to be able to make this choice and I know that many people at Shell may not be in that position. But the fossil fuel industry is gone, and if you have an opportunity to step out, please walk away and towards a more sustainable career, and help put us all on the path to a truly safer future.”
Vox spoke to Dennett about her decision to publicly quit. Below is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
What made you stop working with Shell today?
I cannot continue to work for, with or for a company that blindly ignores all alarm bells.
It’s a bit like someone asking you to work in the tobacco industry. I have continued for this long because I firmly believe that people need to be safe during their operations. We must prevent as many leaks as possible. We must prevent as many major incidents as possible. But there comes a time when it’s just time to get divorced. I’ve gotten to a point where I can no longer live with my conscience supporting a company that so obviously doesn’t care about what’s happening to the climate and people that it’s causing harm.
But the work I did at Shell was valuable in terms of preventing harm to individuals and preventing oil and gas spills. I suppose I’ve consoled myself that it’s a compromise. In this way I’m helping it stay as safe as possible while it’s running but with the hope that there would be a transition and we would move towards more renewable energy and back off in terms of new exploration. More recently it has struck me that they are still building new oil and gas developments and are still looking for new reserves. We can’t do that anymore.
All the warnings are there: the International Energy Agency, COP 26 and the United Nations. [UN Secretary-General] António Guterres says it’s economic and moral madness to keep looking for new oil and gas and new fossil fuels. The governments of the world are saying no, you cannot have new oil and gas production. I think it’s one thing to see a company safely transition to new energy, but it’s another to say I’m still supporting new extractions.
You’ve interviewed many oil and gas workers, from on-site operators to senior executives. What does the corporate culture look like in relation to climate change?
It’s double talk. On the one hand, Shell says, “We care deeply about safety and we don’t want anyone to be harmed.” And yet we are harming millions of people by continuing to extract oil and gas because of the CO2 that is being pumped into the atmosphere .
It’s an industry that’s usually very focused on mitigating risk, but it’s not mitigating any of the risks of climate change.
The surveys we conduct provide a lot of opportunity for people to give open feedback in the questionnaires and in the online surveys. They can enter something that they think needs improvement. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of climate change. Maybe something about local pollution and the associated risks around the facilities. But it’s amazing that nobody really talks about it. I would say recently the target of net zero by 2050 was mentioned. But that’s one person in 11 years speaking to more than 20,000 people, and that’s pretty scary.
It lives in press releases and on the website, but it doesn’t live in the [company] Culture.
What reaction would you hope for from Shell?
I want them to commit to not exploring anywhere else in the world for oil and gas to exploit. We must move away from fossil fuels if we want a future worth living for all. The oil and gas industry knows the science: there’s good evidence, they built the science around it. What I would like to see is Shell use its capital, human power, skills and great pioneering skills that brought us oil and gas 150 years ago to move fast towards a renewable future.
They once had a vision of what a bright future could be like and they thought it was oil and gas. We know that this can no longer give us a secure future.
I would really love for Shell executives and board of directors to really look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe that their vision for more oil and gas development and production really secures a future for humanity.
What role could contractors and consultancies play in pushing fossil fuel companies to change?
It’s quite difficult to ask individual people to leave, and I feel a bit uncomfortable even suggesting to people that they might want to do that. Because when you work on the front lines, somewhere like Nigeria, you have a choice of working in the oil and gas industry or not supporting your family. You don’t have the option of having an exit plan from Shell unless it involves a move to another fossil fuel company. So it’s up to those who caused the problem in the first place to solve the problem.
What position is a company like Shell in when larger companies cut ties?
With the coming [annual general meeting] Next week they want to validate their current climate policy and strategy. It’s probably not very brilliant.
Those who are still influential must be very clear about what is required for the future. And I think those who have less leverage but still have money in it need to take it out.
It has to be some kind of starvation of the fossil fuel industry because ultimately it’s only their win line that makes them realize there is an alternative. That’s what frustrates me. I don’t understand why companies like Shell don’t convert all their capital, technical and human power into a greener vision of the future.
Update May 23, 12:30 p.m.: The story has been updated with comments from Shell.