Images of the Dutch riding their bicycles amidst gentle hills spotted with windmills and tulips are certainly at odds with the chaos that Royal Dutch Shell creates in places like Argentina and Nigeria. In recent news Shell has been accused of greenwashing by advertising watchdogs, the company is eternally tied up in the ongoing conflict in the Niger Delta, the company attempted to derail environmental audits related to a Russian project and a progressive group in Argentina denounced the company for human rights and environmental violations. The company can dress itself up in a green suit with a tulip in the lapel, but the facts reveal the dirt underneath.
This year Shell was called out by advertising watchdogs for greenwashing. The company advertised with images of oil refineries with flowers in chimneys, alongside text: “We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers.” In reality, only 0.325 per cent of their emissions were used to grow flowers.
In September 2008 the violence in Nigeria associated with the oil industry continued. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) launched strikes against pipelines, flow stations and other oil and gas facilities in response to what it said were ground and air strikes by the military against one of its bases. Shell was hard hit by the recent round of violence.
In August 2008 The Observer reported that Shell faces damaging claims over its influence on a supposedly independent environmental audit to determine whether the world’s biggest oil and gas project would receive vital bank funding. Dozens of emails released by the government under the Freedom of Information Act show how Shell officials in London attempted to downplay and edit international environmental criticism of the $22bn Sakhalin II energy scheme off the east coast of Russia, which has subsequently been all but fully financed.
In May 2008 Business Week reported that four Nigerian villagers and an environmental group are demanding oil company Shell take responsibility for damage from oil leaks caused by its Nigerian subsidiary. The letters sent to Shell accuse the company of negligence by improperly maintaining equipment and failing to clean up spills that devastated crops and fish farms in the Niger Delta. The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, or Shell Nigeria, operates more than 1,000 wells in the delta, an area the size of England. The villagers and the Friends of the Earth say that if Shell does not acknowledge responsibility they will file a lawsuit in Dutch courts seeking to clarify responsibility and win damages.
Also in May 2008 Common Dreams Progressive Newswire issued a press release titled “Shell Denounced Internationally for Human Rights and Environmental Violations in Argentina.” Here is an excerpt from the press release:
On the heels of a scathing government audit, and a globally unprecedented preventive closure of its refinery facilities in Buenos Aires Argentina, local groups have filed an international complaint against Shell calling for immediate action by the company to redress the social and environmental harms caused by the refinery to the community and to the local environment during decades of abuse and irresponsible corporate behavior.
INPADE (a local NGO) and Friend of the Earth Argentina, representing the residents of Villa Inflamable, presented parallel complaints (called Specific Instances) to the Governments of Argentina and the Netherlands, today, against SHELL CAPSA (the Argentine affiliate of ROYAL DUTCH SHELL). The complaint denounces Shell for a long list of national, provincial, municipal and international law violations that are not only claimed by the community against the company, but that have been confirmed in a recent audit and preventive closure ordered by the National Environmental Authority of Argentina (the SAyDS).
Gotcha Shell! To misquote Madelyn Albright “There is a place in Hell for companies that don’t help the planet.”
Recent Comments