Consultant who ditched Shell: ‘take a look at yourselves in the mirror’
Caroline Dennett’s eye was caught by a placard with two stark words: “insiders wanted”. The safety consultant was watching a video of Extinction Rebellion climate protesters who had glued themselves inside Shell’s headquarters in April and were encouraging employees to jump ship to aid its cause.
This week Dennett, who runs the independent agency Clout, released a bombshell video severing ties with Shell after an 11-year business relationship. She emailed 1,400 Shell employees and accused the £177bn behemoth of causing “extreme harms” to the environment and having a “disregard for climate change risks”.
She believes Shell is failing to wind down its polluting fossil fuels business and urged its employees to “walk away while there’s still time”. She acknowledged that she was “privileged” in being able to make the choice to cut ties.
Speaking to the Guardian, she says support for her decision has flooded in from clients and people all over the world. Her cause may have been helped by the fact Shell has made outsized profits from the energy crisis, hitting its public image and fuelling calls for a windfall tax, which has now been introduced.
A lone troll told her: “You have taken the money and now you have run, you princess.”
Dennett’s mic drop video was the culmination of a growing sense of unease in working with the 115-year-old company. Her relationship with Shell began in the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster as the industry scrambled to tighten up safety procedures.
She studied the lessons from the Gulf of Mexico, and other tragedies, including poor handovers and pressure to take shortcuts. Clout then designed a bespoke survey for frontline workers, managers and contractors. Since then, her work has taken her to
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