100 YEARS OF NOTICE...

Five years ago we set off down a different road. Judge for yourself how far we’ve come.

- Shell International, Ltd. Financial Times ad, June 2002

Royal Dutch Shell is a company with long experience, operating on a global basis for more than a century. During that time, it has had ample opportunity to learn about responsible business practice — in the environment, in the workplace, and in communities. The learning opportunities didn’t just begin on Earth Day 1970, or at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, or with the Brent Spar or Nigeria in 1995-96. The major events and public policy initiatives of its times — coupled with the calamities and malpractice within its own corporate boundaries — have provided Royal Dutch Shell the opportunities for improving its practice and philosophy. Some of this opportunity dates to the late 19 th century. Other openings for self improvement have been more recent. Still, it has been 25 years since the adoption of the company’s much touted 1977 Business Principles; more than 30 years since the first Earth Day; and ten years since Rio. Shell, for the most part, has responded to crises and social pressures in textbook fashion; making the appropriate bows in the direction of change, spending money and putting a few new programs into practice. Yes, Shell has been atten-tive to public concerns.

But Shell has not been making the deep changes needed to prevent damage to health and the environment. The company’s "advancements" on public safety, environmental protection, and innovative energy technology — are really not that impressive. True, Shell’s production technology is awesome, leviathan, and quite remarkable for what it can do and where it can go. Still, that more progress has not been made by Shell in safety, environmental protection, and alternative energy innovation in recent years is equally remarkable. For the "notice of need" in all of these areas has clearly existed for years — decades in most cases.

The question is why? Why do these problems persist? Why in an industry that is loaded with very sophisticated technology and professional talent aimed at finding, extracting, and refining hydrocarbons, do the perils and dangers of hydrocarbons and petrochemicals persist? Is it because, hydrocarbons are inher-ently dangerous, and that no matter how much talent or technology is applied, they will never be risk free or without danger? Or is it because the industry has spent more time, more money, and more talent on finding, developing, and refining hydrocarbons than it has in the care of their extraction, control of pollution, assurance of safety, and the exercise of precaution? One hundred years is far too long a time to wait to stem the dangers of the hydrocarbon joyride — the so-called "side effects" of the petrochemical bonanza.

Truth is, these are not "side effects" at all, but rather "main effects" and central problems. Corporate spending and priorities should reflect that fact, but sadly they do not. Instead, communities, workers and the environment have borne these risks and dangers, in effect, subsidizing the industry’s very handsome margins. This is no longer acceptable, especially from companies like Shell that call themselves leaders of sustainable development. Zero pollution, complete safety, and the earnest pursuit of clean and safe energy — these should be the new priorities at Shell, and of all business. Shell’s various self-claimed "epiphanies" and re-inventions — whether in 1977 or the mid-1990s — were, in fact, Johnny-come-lately revelations, with the facts and circumstances of the prob-lems, in many cases, such as aldrin and dieldrin or MTBE, known years and even decades before the company acted. A smart company such as Shell, populated by lots of bright scientists and insightful people, clearly had early knowledge of public safety hazards, chemical risks, and environmental exposures. Shell’s people also had the capability to do something about these risks and exposures long before the com-pany formally acted on them. That fact is becoming increasingly clear in court.

But Shell and its leaders, as this record is showing, haven’t always acted in a timely manner, and even today, they are still not rising to the global imperative to reduce known perils, whether in products or operations. Such self-serving lag time, deflection, cover ups, and corporate obstruction are inexcusable and a social negli-gence of the highest order. No, the notice has long been served and is well past sufficient. There are no more excuses. The people and the planet no longer want that kind of business.

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