Political engagement

Shell engages with governments, regulators and policymakers to help shape comprehensive policy, legislation and regulation. We advocate our positions on matters which affect us, our employees, customers, shareholders or local communities, in accordance with our values and the Shell General Business Principles. Our internal governance approach to political engagement is summarised in our statement on corporate political engagement.

In the European Union (EU) and the USA, we report expenditure associated with our lobbying activities, which includes estimated percentages of industry association costs, in line with the requirements and guidelines set out in the EU Transparency Register and the US Lobbying Disclosure Act respectively. There are different rules for which costs should be reported in these two submissions and we are required to comply with the appropriate requirements for each jurisdiction. These submissions are publicly available:

• In the EU, Shell’s reported estimated annual costs related to activities covered by the register were €4,000,000 to €4,500,000 in 2023 [A].
• In the USA, Shell’s reported expenses related to lobbying practices were $7,080,000 in 2023.

[A] In our 2022 Sustainability Report, we stated that Shell’s reported estimated annual costs related to activities covered by the register were €5,500,000 to €5,999,999 in 2022. However, we subsequently discovered an error in calculating this amount. The amount should have been reported as €4,500,000 to €4,999,999.

In 2023, we continued to advocate our policy positions on climate and the energy transition. In the EU, Shell advocated policies to enable commercial investments in the energy transition, notably the creation of demand for low-carbon solutions. We supported the Fit for 55 package, including binding targets for the use of renewable hydrogen and advanced biofuels. We supported policies to accelerate the electrification of road transport and frameworks that help the business case for carbon abatement and removal.

In the USA, we advocated the full implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. We also advocated simplifying and streamlining the permitting process for new energy and infrastructure projects, which is crucial for the delivery of secure and affordable energy supplies in the USA.

In March 2024, we updated our global climate and energy transition policy positions, which we believe support the energy transition and the Paris Agreement as we transform our business. We plan to publish our next Climate and Energy Transition Lobbying Report in April 2024.

Further information on our approach to political engagement, our lobbying expenditure, our policy positions, advocacy and industry association memberships is provided on our website www.shell.com/advocacy.