Business pillars

Powering Progress is a strategy that combines our financial strength and discipline with a dynamic approach to our portfolio of assets and products, so we can seize the opportunities of the energy transition. Shell is adapting its portfolio of assets and products to better meet the cleaner energy needs of its customers. We are delivering our strategy through three business pillars: Growth, Transition, and Upstream.

Our Growth pillar includes Marketing and Renewables and Energy Solutions businesses, such as Power and Hydrogen. Our Growth businesses increase our returns while helping customers to decarbonise.

Our Transition pillar includes our Integrated Gas and Chemicals and Products businesses. These businesses enable us to accelerate our progress towards net-zero emissions and deliver sustainable cash flow.

Our Upstream pillar delivers value to shareholders, provides vital oil and gas to society and funds the transformation of our portfolio.

Achieving our strategy depends on how we respond to competitive forces. We continually assess the external environment – the markets and the underlying economic, political, social and environmental drivers that shape them – to evaluate changes in competitive forces and business models. We use future scenarios to help inform our strategy. We regularly review the markets where we operate, assessing our competitive position by analysing trends, uncertainties, and the strengths and weaknesses of our traditional and non-traditional competitors.

We maintain business plans that focus on actions and capabilities to create and sustain competitive advantage. We maintain a risk management framework that regularly assesses our response to, and risk appetite for, identified risks.

See “Risk factors” and “Governance”.

Our Executive Directors’ remuneration is linked to the successful delivery of our strategy, based on performance indicators that are aligned with shareholder interests. Long-term incentives form the majority of the Executive Directors’ remuneration for above-target performance. In 2021, the Long-term Incentive Plan (LTIP) included cash generation, capital discipline, value created for shareholders, and an energy transition condition.

See the “Directors’ Remuneration Report”.

For more details on how the strategic pillars are embedded into our businesses, see “Shell Powering Progress”.