Take a Share in asking Shell to clean up with Amnesty UK

The Royal Dutch Shell company is one of Britain’s biggest corporations. It’s exploits enable many wonders of the world in which we live today and it’s vast cash flows fund pensions around the UK. At the same time, Shell is noted in many environmental fiascos around the world. As it’s annual meeting approaches, Amnesty UK are looking to remind shareholders in Shell that the black gold has a dark side and that bumper profits mean we need to push bosses to enforce better ecological and social standards through their system. This short trailer from Amnesty explains the problem well:

There is a full report by Amnesty International on Shell’s activity in the Niger Delta in pdf that you can read if you want to examine the situation more fully.

In order to remind Shell’s shareholders that Shell’s recent bumper profits have come at a huge cost to the environment, to local populations and wildlife and to urge the shareholders to insist on higher standards from management, Amnesty UK is looking to take out a full page advert in a UK national paper. They’d like you to buy a share in this advert as £10 will buy a 1cm² section of prime publishing real estate for the following ad:

Amnesty Shell advert

Please participate in whatever way you can. If you can support the ad financially it will help. If you can’t, ask someone who can. If you are a shareholder or have a pension that is investing in Shell, start letting Shell know you need them to do better. You can email Shell CEO, Peter Vosser, and ask him how Shell is living up to words like these which were taken from their own website:

“As we work to help meet the world’s growing energy needs we aim to bring benefits to local communities and reduce impacts of our operations”, “A career with Shell is more than just a day job. It’s an opportunity to join a company who tackle real world problems”.

~ Shell.com via Amnesty UK

Amnesty’s campaign is at http://blog.protectthehuman.com/shellad and you can buy a share in their ad from there.