Talk:Controversies surrounding Royal Dutch Shell
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[edit] Removal of positives
I have added back two positive sections about Shell - "LiveWIRE" and the "Shell whistleblower helpline" deleted by "Stephen Parnell" some months ago. He has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in editing and expanding the information about Royal Dutch Shell and does what he believes to be correct and fair. When he first started editing the Royal Dutch Shell article I suspected that he was working for Shell. It is therefore ironic that he is now being attacked for allegedly being biased in favour of Shell. I do not believe that he is biased one way or the other as far as Shell is concerned. However in my humble opinion Stephen is dogmatic and does not have any regard for the input and opinions of other contributors. I am a long term critic of Shell but believe that for the sake of balance, the positives as well as the negatives should be covered in the entry. LiveWIRE is a worthwhile and successful scheme encouraging and supporting business start-ups by young people. I am less sure about the merit of the whistleblower programme but it does seem to be a positive and important step by Shell. Others can make a judgement on whether it should be included. User JohnaDonovan. 09.50, 6 February 2007.
Almost this entire article was a giant negative. I'm not surprised, of course. However, it was most unfortunate that when I added positives, Stephen Parnell felt free to either cut them out or spin them. Lets look at what he did.
- Instead of being in a "positives" section, he changed it to a "response to criticisms" section. First off, despite that being a transparent attempt to make it look like anything good that the company does simply must be to spin something bad that they did, it's not correct. When was it that Shell was getting some sort of horrible criticism about their GLBT rights? Is that some mysterios attempt at spin, their enacting of policies that got them an 85% HRC rating? What about Carrol's active opposition to the Iraq oilfields selloff?
- Omitted the details that favor Shell the most -- for example, making no mention whatsoever of the fact that Shell actively encourages governments to regulate carbon emissions. Compare this to Exxon-Mobil who funds global warming skeptics. I could have gone into this a lot more; Shell, for example, is largely the reason that GCC broke up. Then Stephen, in a finishing blow, omitted all mention of Shell's work on carbon sequestration.
- Focused instead on one-sided reviews (on the main Shell article, I had to add in this review from the Sierra Club's site -- and it's hardly the only one out there), and pointing out that Shell uses their renewables business in their advertising. Well, of course they use it in their advertizing. What do you expect them to advertise? They all sell pretty much the same product.
This is imbalanced. It takes an already biased article and throws it off the charts. Do you see me digging into the negatives section, and trying to spin them to be pro-Shell?** No? Then don't do the opposite. However, as for the blog ref, I'll go replace it with a firsthand source. Thanks for pointing out that was one of your complaints. -- Rei 23:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- **: I certainly could. For example, even the articles linked to point out that the Nigeria situation isn't so clear-cut. Many of the leaks are from locals tapping into pipelines ("bunkering" -- check out Conflict in the Niger Delta), armed bands occupied Shell facilities at times, etc. Read "The Operating Environment" here[1] for interesting bits of trivia, such as the fact that that year, they had their pipelines tapped 88 times and were attacked 78 times. Also, 68% of the volume of oil spilled was from sabotage (pg 10). But, I'll leave you alone to spin your negatives (so long as there are no significant factual errors) as long as you treat me the same. -- Rei 23:37, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Also, I went ahead and added your percentages info and "greenwash" complaint to the positives section. -- Rei 23:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
And another thing: I just went to the BP page, and what the heck? Where's its mile long criticisms page? Are the indigenous people of the Amazon and the environment of Alaska somehow less important than Nigeria? It gets one accusation of greenwashing and then a litany of how good it is, while here I'm hardly even allowed to report a single positive? God damn, they have an effective PR campaign. :P
The facts are pretty simple: Shell and BP *are* among the more progressive of the oil giants, and while pennywise, and even potentially initially viewed as loss-leaders, their renewables businesses are among the biggest in the world. That stated, as you'd expect from an oil company, they've both accumulated a long list of problems, working in hostile regions while producing the vast quantities of environmentally-damaging chemicals that world markets gobble up. It's important to present things as they are -- and fairly, for God's sake. -- Rei 00:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I have added a section in relation to litigation in Malaysia between Shell and 399 former employees known as Team A who won their case in 2004. Shell appealed and the litigation is still in progress. I will try to find some more recent newspaper reports so that the information in the section is as up to date as possible. User: Johnadonovan 10.13, 24 February 2007.
I would like to point out that there is no supporting evidence given in respect of the three long paragraphs about Formula Shell. I do personally recall the controversy, but I have been unable to find any citations which could be included to verify what is stated by the author of the Formula Shell contribution. User: Johnadonovan. 22.22, 24 February 2007.
[edit] Formula Shell
John, I can confirm that the paragraph on Formula Shell is substantially correct as written. I remember it well!! PaddyBriggs 11:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] “Issues” a bit of a weasel word!
In her recent column in “The Spectator” Dot Wordsworth wrote “2006 was the year of issues, when the word problem gave way to “issues around” things”. I know what she means. This Wiki entry, and the link on the main Shell page, purport to describe issues and to be balanced by having both negative and positive ones talked about.
The problem with this is that whilst it is reasonable to list and elaborate on those important problems that Shell has encountered over the years it is far more problematic to list and describe positives. Shell has been in business for 100 years this year (and I worked for the corporation for a third of that time!). Over those 100 years I would argue that most of what Shell has done has been pretty positive. So to list just seven positives here is hugely selective and arbitrary.
I absolutely agree that the entry needs to be balanced and not biased but I think that the way to do this is to list the relatively small number of problems (already quite well done) and then write about how Shell has sought to deal with these problems. This would entail changing the title of the entry from the euphemistic “Issues” to “Problems”. At the same time the main entry can be used to include more of Shell’s many successes over the years (possibly including one or two of the “Positive issues” from this entry).
I am happy to have a go at doing the redrafts necessary and I think that I have the knowledge and experience to do this. But I don’t want to get into an edit war with anyone so I am posting this proposal for comment first before I get into the task. PaddyBriggs 13:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
- I think this is a sensible way forward. It is a bit arbitrary whether this article was titled reputation issues or "criticism of" but having this title means we should try to get some sort of balanced discussion (including long term shareholder return and stuff which is part of reputation. I don't think there is much risk of an edit war. --BozMo talk 09:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Paddy, I doubt if there is anyone better qualified to redraft the article in the way you suggest. It would be a further improvement if all of the sections could be placed into date or alphabetical order as it seems to be in random order at the moment. Johnadonovan 21:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Friends: I have now made the changes flagged in my suggestion and hope that wikipedians will be happy with it. I have tried hard not to lose substantive "positive" points about Shell (which are now on the main Royal Dutch Shell entry. I hope that I haven't gone too far! PaddyBriggs 15:39, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Sustainability / Ethics
Someone has added the following paragraph under the above heading: -
Management and Ethics S.A., a company that specializes in studies in sustainability and ethics, is one of the few firms that releases an annual report of the world's most sustainable and ethical oil companies. The score for a company is the sum of their compliance with various standards (SEC, Sarbanes-Oxley, national laws, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Global Compact, GRI, ILO, OSHA, ISO, IUCN, etc) with all weightings being equal (one point). As of 2007, Shell has topped their list for the fourth consecutive year.[2] Their corporate social responsibility score, 91.76%, is second only to Total S.A., while their sustainability score, 88.63%, is second to Petrobras.
There are two points I would like to make. Firstly the link does not work. Secondly, in my humble opinion the ratings cannot be correct as they take in the worst year in Shell's history, 2004, when its reputation hit rock bottom as a result of the reserves scandal. After publicly challenging the survey results, I received an email from Dr William Cox, the MD of the survey company, Management & Excellence SA. I replied asking if Shell is a client. There was no response. His email and my response can be found on this webpage. Under the circumstances, I believe that the entire reference to the survey results should be removed. Johnadonovan 18:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I support the removal of this section. PaddyBriggs 09:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Page title, Move of March 27th
Apparently this page was moved once before the move I initiated on March 27th, however, that move was carried out in a manner that lost a great deal of the page's history. If it can be done without removing subsequent edit history, note that we may benefit from posting this article to the Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen, to have the initial page's history restored. MrZaiustalk 19:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
