Shell plans to increase the annual amount of money it invests in renewable energy to US$4 billion, the supermajor’s head of gas and new energy, Maarten Wetselaar told the Guardian in an interview.
The figure is double the maximum current annual
investment Shell has allocated for cleaner energy initiatives but the
increase will only materialize if these initial investments prove to make
financial sense.
“I would like my current business to be
financially credible enough for not only the company, but shareholders, to
want to double it and look at more,” Wetselaar told the Guardian.
Shell has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide
emissions by 50 percent over the next five decades as it shifts to more
renewable energy, including biofuels, and boosts operational efficiencies, in
the latest sign that one of the world’s top Big Oil players is determined
to move away from its principal business.
"Our view is if society needs to tackle the
dual challenge of climate change but also accommodating higher demand for
energy — as of course the energy poor need to get access to energy as well
— we have to reduce the carbon footprint of the energy system as a society
to a net zero level," chief executive Ben van Beurden said last year.
Shell has been subjected to activist shareholder
pressure in this respect as well. For four years in a row, Follow this, a Dutch
investment group targeting oil supermajors, has been tabling resolutions
requiring the company to move more deeply into renewables and away from its
core business in oil. Next year will not be an exception: Follow this has
already filed a resolution to be voted at Shell’s 2019 AGM, a resolution
seeking to force the company to move its business goals closer to Paris
Accord commitments undertaken by more than a hundred countries.