Shell thinks that the likelihood of Shell having the same fate as photo company Kodak is small. “We are thinking a lot about Kodak moments.” Kodak, a long-time powerhouse in photography, proved unable to adequately respond to the rapid development of digital photography and went bankrupt.

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

‘I have to make sure that Shell does not become a dodo’

‘We are also a marketing company that serves customers from 45,000 branches. These are more branches than McDonald’s. “Photo: Peter Boer

Bert van Dijk

Shell invests $ 1 billion a year to $ 2 billion in clean energy, but still more than ten times in oil and gas. Does not the mega-concern cope with the same fate as Kodak, the photo company that went bankrupt because it reacted too late to changes in the environment?

A conversation with Jeremy Bentham, head of Shells scenario department.

Bentham (60) is the proud owner of the Dodo. A drawing of the extinct bird is framed in the room of the Shell driver. The internal ‘award’ has been passed on to Shell drivers since 1976 as ‘a warning to us all’, as is shown in the drawing.

Bentham is the eighth ‘custodian’ of the Dodo. ‘It is my responsibility to ensure that Shell does not become a dodo that reacts too late to changes in its environment.’ read more

Shell boost for electric car owners: More petrol stations will be fitted with electric car charge points under a new nationwide plan.

Customers quit First Utility, the supplier Shell bought to take on the Big Six: The UK energy supplier acquired by Royal Dutch Shell as a vehicle for growth has lost tens of thousands of customers since agreeing the deal. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

Maarten Wetselaar: ‘There has been a period of thirty years in which the industry and we also only talked about the largest oil platforms that were built and the deepest wells that were drilled.’ Photo: Michel de Groot

‘The energy transition gives power back to the customer’

Bert van Dijk: Energy: 12 Sept 2018

ShellRDSA € 27.85 + 1.05% is still an oil and gas multinational, but is sorting for a future in which it will become one of the largest electricity companies. ‘We are faced with a revolution’, says Maarten Wetselaar, member of the Executive Board of Shell in an interview with the FD. He is responsible, among other things, for the New Energies division that was established two years ago. read more

Emily Gosden: July 6, 2018

Royal Dutch Shell would be “foolhardy” to adopt firm targets for cutting its carbon emissions because it would open itself up to lawsuits, the company’s boss has said.

The energy group has set an “ambition” to halve the carbon footprint of its energy products by 2050, which it says would put it in line with the Paris climate goals, but has resisted calls for binding commitments.

Ben van Beurden, Shell chief executive, said that the group did not want to “put ourselves at the mercy of a legal challenge”. read more

Reuters Staff: Tuesday 29 May 2018

LONDON (Reuters) – Friends of the Earth plans to file a lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), accusing the oil company of failing to act on climate change, the environmental activist group said on Tuesday.

Shell has set out “ambitions” to halve carbon emissions by 2050 and expand in renewables, but the Anglo-Dutch company has come under pressure from investors and activists to reduce its carbon footprint and comply with the 2015 international Paris climate agreement. read more

By Jeremy Hodges, Lauren Leatherby and Kartikay Mehrotra
May 24, 2018

In the global fight against climate change, one tool is proving increasingly popular: litigation. From California to the Philippines, activists, governments and concerned citizens are suing the biggest polluters and national governments over the effects of climate change at a break-neck pace. “The courts are our last, best hope at this moment of irreversible harm to our planet and life on it,” said Julia Olson, an attorney for Our Children’s Trust, a legal challenge center in the U.S. that is involved in climate change litigation across 13 countries, including the U.S., Pakistan and Uganda. Cases by San Francisco and Oakland face a motion to dismiss the lawsuit today in a California federal court, where Chevron Corp., BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhilips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc will argue that remedies and penalties for climate change are a matter for lawmakers, not a single judge. read more

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Kelly Gilblom: 22 May 2018, 14:48 BST

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has seen off the two most debated issues at its shareholder meeting — the boss’s pay and responsibility in tackling climate change. But not without a degree of drama.

The company won the backing of about 94 percent of shareholders to not set specific emission-reduction targets, with Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden saying it is taking “leadership” on the issue. However, while almost 75 percent of investors also approved the remuneration report, it faced stiffer resistance after an influential advisory firm asked them to reject the package. read more

May 22, 2018

A group of 26 large institutional investors have petitioned Shell to formulate concrete goals in its effort to address the terms of the Paris climate accord.

The 26 investors, which have a total of $7.8trn under management, presented a statement to the Anglo-Dutch energy giant during Shell’s AGM in The Hague. The group of  26 includes HSBC Global Asset Management, AXA Investment Manager, Aegon, Calpers en MN.

In its statement, the investors applauded Shell’s ambition to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% and called on other oil and gas companies to follow suit. read more

Ron Bousso: MAY 22, 2018

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Top investors in Royal Dutch Shell on Tuesday stepped up pressure on the oil and gas giant to commit to hard targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to battle climate change.

Shell has set out “ambitions” to halve carbon emissions by 2050 and expand in renewables energy, which Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said were ground breaking for the oil industry.

To view a graphic on Shell emissions, click: reut.rs/2Iya7Hf

“Nobody else comes close, it is seriously ambitious,” van Beurden said of Shell’s plan at the company’s annual general meeting in The Hague. read more

Jillian Ambrose, energy editor: 20 MAY 2018 • 7:30PM

Britain’s largest shareholder advisory groups have called on investors in Royal Dutch Shell to reject growing demands for the oil giant to take full responsibility for its impact on the environment.

Shell faces a binding shareholder vote tomorrow to decide whether to adopt rigorous accountability standards to bring its operations into line with the Paris climate agreement. Glass Lewis and ISS have urged shareholders to reject the “unduly burdensome” and “problematic” proposal. read more

Shell and BP may have to face down shareholder opposition to their chief executives’ pay packets at their annual general meetings next week.

Written by David McPhee – 18/05/2018 7:45 am

And for the third year in a row, Shell investors will vote on a resolution asking the company to set clear goals for meeting climate change targets.

Recommendations by the Institutional Shareholders Services (ISS) once again focus heavily on the pay of top executives at the energy giant, with ISS raising concerns over the 80% rate of bonus delivered to the CEO of Shell despite only reaching 70% on sustainable development targets.

Similarly, investors advisory firm Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (PIRC) continued to caution shareholders against sanctioning BP chief executive Bob Dudley’s remuneration package, which it called “excessive” in 2017 as it soared by more than £1 million to £9.5m. read more

Shell closed a deal to buy First Utility, a British energy company that owns neither power plants nor gas pipelines, in March. CreditTom Jamieson for The New York Times

By Stanley Reed

May 15, 2018

COVENTRY, England — There seems to be little about the scrappy energy company in central England that would appeal to Royal Dutch Shell, the button-down oil giant. The little company, First Utility, is an upstart challenger. It offers friendly customer service, and low prices on electricity and natural gas. But it doesn’t own any power plants or gas pipelines; First Utility is a virtual energy company — the product of technological advancement and deregulation. read more

Church of England funds back AGM resolution calling for more aggressive targets read more

Sinead Lynch, UK country chair for Shell, said yesterday that the oil giant knows that it “needs to change” in the coming energy transition, and “that is what Shell is going to do”.

Written by David McPhee – 03/05/2018

As part of a panel at the All-Energy conference in Glasgow, Ms Lynch said that Shell was part of a movement within the industry which was recognising the energy transition and that Shell was “beginning that change”. She said: “Shell has a deep history and deep roots across Scotland, in our upstream business where we have been investing in and producing from the North Sea for 50 years. But also in our downstream business where we have been producing a number of downstream products to our customers here for almost a 100 years, and that’s a range of products that’s beginning to change. FULL ARTICLE read more

Tristan R. Brown: April 30, 2018

Summary

The world’s biggest oil companies, for long typecast as villains of climate change, are seeking to reinvent themselves as environmental pioneers. “We’re not going to be sitting back and say let’s see what society does and we’ll follow that,” said Ben van Beurden, chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. “We’re more than prepared to be assertive and lean forward and say: ‘This is what it takes.”’ Irked by a shareholder resolution that would force Europe’s largest oil company to create specific emissions targets, the CEO took the unusual step of engaging with five reporters on Monday about Shell’s vision for a decarbonized world. Not only is Shell implementing its own, much stronger, measures to manage the energy transition, according to Van Beurden, but it can also drag the rest of the world along with it. read more