While Shell has started a campaign in the Dutch media to show a green face, the new CEO is cutting a few hundred jobs at the clean energy division. What does Shell actually want?
Full-page advertisements in the newspapers: ‘And before you know it you will be building four wind farms at sea’. Long commercials on TV in which Shell pretends to be the bringer of green energy.
And then this news: Shell is cutting 200 jobs at its sustainable energy branch. The department where they have to come up with new, sustainable energy solutions. There are still about a thousand colleagues left, while the oil and gas group has more than 90,000 employees. Indeed, you can say that sustainability has always been neglected by the oil giant.
Not unique
But by cutting 200 jobs, Shell’s new CEO Wael Sawan is sending an unrelenting signal: we are a dollar-driven oil and gas company – period! The decision follows shortly after it became clear that Shell was skipping 7 billion in state aid for hydrogen plans in the United States. Instead of focusing on other green goals, Shell’s focus on climate-friendly activities is further weakening.
Shell is not unique in this and closely follows competitors ExxonMobil and Chevron. These companies still invest tens of billions in traditional fossil oil and gas extraction. Contrast that with Gasunie, which also grew up on fossil fuels, but has created 850 green jobs since 2020 and is now occupied by 1 in 3 employees (2,800 in total). Then you commit to a sustainable future.
Greenwashing
What should we do with that greenwashing advertisement from Shell? Earlier this year, the British advertising regulator banned advertisements in which Shell and its competitors pretend to be more sustainable than they are. Building four wind farms in the North Sea as a co-investor is of course wonderful, but in terms of size – Shell made a profit of 36.2 billion dollars last year – it pales in comparison to the fossil investments that the company makes. The British watchdog demands that oil companies compare their sustainable investments with fossil fuels to put it into perspective. Our Advertising Code Committee could follow this example.