She spent 11 years inside Shell, surveying 35,000 frontline workers across 65 facilities in 30 countries. Then she emailed 1,400 executives to tell them exactly what she thought — and walked away.

In this TBLI Talk, Robert Rubinstein sits down with Caroline Dennett, Director of CLOUT Ltd and one of the most striking whistleblowers in the history of the fossil fuel industry. As Shell's senior safety consultant, Caroline had unparalleled access to the reality behind the company's public climate commitments. What she found was a complete disconnect: rigorous safety culture on individual worksites, and total silence on the most unsafe thing the company was doing — pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an unsustainable rate. Her radical truth: you cannot claim a Goal Zero safety ambition while planning to extract more oil and gas than ever before. That is not safety. It is double-talk.

In this episode:

• What 11 years of safety culture research inside Shell's global operations revealed about leadership, climate, and corporate denial
• Why Shell's net-zero pledges are, in Caroline's assessment, a complete greenwash — and what the data from half a million words of employee feedback shows
• What it costs — personally and professionally — to publicly fire a major client over values
• How safety culture and climate culture are linked — and why leadership determines both
• What genuine corporate leadership on climate would actually look like
• How to drive systems change when organisations refuse to join the dots

The key insight: Caroline asked a Shell colleague dealing with 42 inches of rain in 24 hours on a site in Houston: is this climate change? They recognised it was. But Shell wouldn't take responsibility for it. What's the point in focusing on individual safety if you ignore the most unsafe thing you do as a company?

⏱️ Episode Guide:

• 0:00 — Why Caroline publicly resigned from Shell after 11 years
• 0:X:XX — What 35,000 employee surveys revealed about Shell's climate culture
• 0:X:XX — Safety culture, leadership, and climate denial: the connection
• 0:X:XX — The personal cost of walking away from 60–70% of your business
• 0:X:XX — What genuine corporate climate leadership looks like
• 0:X:XX — How to drive change when organisations refuse to act

👤 About Caroline DennettCaroline Dennett is Director of CLOUT Ltd and a social researcher and safety consultant. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, she was commissioned by Shell to design a safety culture diagnostic tool, and for over a decade surveyed 35,000+ frontline employees and contractors across 65+ facilities in 30+ businesses in the global petrochemical sector. Climate One In May 2022 she publicly withdrew her services from Shell, citing their lack of leadership in addressing environmental crises and zero ambition for a genuinely green and safe future. Her video announcement went viral and garnered international media coverage. Climate One She is also active in working to divest UK pension funds from fossil fuels. Workforclimate

For anyone working in ESG, corporate governance, climate leadership, or the future of responsible business — this episode is essential listening.

ABOUT TBLI RADICAL TRUTHReal experience. Real results. No greenwashing. TBLI Group is the world's leading ESG and impact investing network — educating, advising, and connecting investors for 25 years.🌐 tbligroup.com

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