Illustration: A shareholder confronts the boardroom over corporate accountability, climate risk and the right to challenge management. Conceptual artwork; not an actual Shell board meeting
AN INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INVESTIGATION
By the Donovan–Shell Archive | 6 November 2026
A new legal analysis from international law firm Fieldfisher identifies Shell as a leading example of the difficulties facing activist shareholders. But behind the legal arguments lies a much larger question: who really holds the directors of a multinational oil giant accountable?
There is something wonderfully revealing about the corporate world’s vocabulary.
When executives challenge established practices, it is called leadership.
Shell sold the German battery pioneer in August. By October, Sonnen GmbH had filed for insolvency. Yet across the Atlantic, the company’s American operation is helping launch an innovative electricity-grid project. The contrast raises fresh questions about what survives when a former clean-energy flagship is dismantled.
By John Donovan — 29 October 2026
By John Donovan — 29 October 2026
Shell has not stopped believing in the energy transition. It simply believes the transition should happen somewhere else, to someone else, and ideally on someone else’s balance sheet.
Shell has produced hundreds of pages explaining its progress towards a lower-carbon future. Unfortunately for the corporate narrative, it has also included the numbers.
