Shell pledges to go green faster; 50% less CO2 emissions in 2030

Shell wants to halve its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 compared to 2016. The oil and gas group announced this when releasing its quarterly figures.

The company wants to achieve this, among other things, by selling spare parts and using energy more efficiently. For example, you want to invest in CO2 capture and storage and you want to convince suppliers to switch to sustainable energy.

The announcement appears to be in response to a judge’s ruling this year in a case brought by Meliodefense. In it, the judge said Shell should cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030 compared to 2019.

So far, Shell has announced that it wants to become CO2 neutral by 2050, but there has been no concrete target for 2030.

emission customers

In June, shortly after the verdict in the lawsuit was passed, Van Beurden already said Shell would try to speed up efforts to make it more sustainable. However, the company announced at the time that it would appeal the judge’s ruling. Last week, Milieudefensie noted that based on recent research, it appears Shell will indeed be emitting more carbon dioxide.

The judge also asks the company to make a maximum effort to reduce customer emissions by 45 percent. It is not yet clear how Shell intends to do this.

Shell’s intent goes against the wishes of large activist contributor Third Point. He wrote a letter to the group yesterday with a request to split the company. The contributor believes that the group is focusing too much on sustainability and is distracting from other activities. It is not yet clear how much support that plan will have from other shareholders.

symbolic move

Eumedion, a Dutch group of major institutional investors, is reacting in any case positively to Shell’s announcement. “It’s a very good signal from the company,” says Director Rients Abma. It was also expected after the increased support for the “follow this” and the court’s decision.

The ABP pension fund said earlier this week that it will sell shares like Shell, because the transition in fossil companies is not going fast enough. “It’s a disappointing move,” said Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Shell. “I don’t think this contributes positively to the energy transition in any way. It’s just a symbolic move, but symbolism is clearly necessary sometimes.”

447 million losses

Shell announced a loss of $447 million in its quarterly results released today. This is mainly due to the write-offs and damages incurred by the company as a result of Hurricane Ida in the United States. Excluding these write-offs, a profit of $4.1 billion was made.

For the full year to date, a net profit of $8.6 billion has been generated.