The Board of Directors for Shell, the multinational oil and gas company, are being personally sued over their climate strategy. Environmental lawyers from ClientEarth have just filed a lawsuit at the high court in England against all eleven members of the Shell Global Board of Directors, claiming that their climate strategy is unreasonable and fails to move away from fossil fuels quickly enough.
As one of the five largest petrochemical companies in the world, Shell is no stranger to lawsuits. In 2021, the Dutch Court ordered Shell to cut carbon emissions from oil and gas production by 45% by 2030. The company is currently also being sued in London by nearly 14,000 residents of two Nigerian communities for water pollution stemming from a series of oil spills that have had devastating impacts on the farming and fishing livelihoods upon which they depend. However, the claim just filed by ClientEarth is unique for being the first of its kind to aim to hold corporate directors personally liable for climate failings.
If this lawsuit succeeds, it will pave the way for future shareholder lawsuits against companies that fail to develop strategies to manage climate risk. With any luck, this will also provide directors of other oil and gas companies with much-needed motivation to focus on developing and enacting realistic strategies for clean energy transitions.