Our approach to respecting nature
Respecting nature is part of our Powering Progress strategy. We recognise there is a growing global urgency to protect and enhance biodiversity, conserve fresh water and use resources more efficiently.
The links between nature and climate are recognised in the UN Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of 2022 and in discussions at the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP28). We will work with governments and others to help implement the framework, which provides a common direction and targets for governments to take action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
As a business, we use natural resources such as land, water and materials for our operations. Our activities can have an impact on nature through discharges and emissions to the environment, and through changes to the use of land and water including oceans.
Respecting the environment and local communities has been integral to the way we do business for many years, as set out in the Shell General Business Principles and Shell Commitment and Policy on Health, Security, Safety, the Environment and Social Performance.
Our Executive Committee is accountable for delivery of respecting nature, progress towards which is reviewed by our Board’s Sustainability Committee (SUSCO).
Our progress
For a large global organisation like Shell, implementing a change programme for respecting nature has many elements and is a multi-year journey. Since launch in 2021, we have:
- worked to embed respecting nature into our activities and business processes;
- enhanced our internal performance management systems to track and report on progress; and
- continued to build employees’ awareness, knowledge and skills to deepen their understanding of respecting nature.
We are also updating our environmental standards and guidance used by our projects and facilities around the world.
In 2023, we reviewed our progress and performance on respecting nature.
We consolidated our respecting nature ambitions into the following themes: having a positive impact on biodiversity, aiming for zero waste and using water, other resources and materials efficiently.
We have already achieved some of the commitments we set when we launched respecting nature in 2021. Our commitment to reduce fresh-water consumption in highly water-stressed areas by 15% was achieved ahead of the target date of 2025. We have also conducted detailed assessments to inform our approach to fresh water and waste, which will be tailored to local conditions.
We have concluded that the scale of our ambition to use 1 million tonnes of plastic waste a year in our global chemical plants by 2025 is unfeasible due to lack of available plastic waste feedstock, slow technology development and regulatory uncertainty. We continue to work with partners across the plastic waste value chain, such as the waste management industry and pyrolysis oil producers, to help develop a circular value chain globally (see Plastics).
The remaining commitments announced in 2021 have either been incorporated into our new Safety, Environment and Asset Management (SEAM) Standards, which take effect from mid-2024, or are included in the relevant business objectives and processes.
Our approach, ambition and priorities are shown in the graphic below.
You can read more in the other respecting nature sections and more about our approach at www.shell.com/sustainability/environment.
