'A Trojan horse of legitimacy': Shell launches a 'climate tech' startup advertising jobs in oil and gas

Source: The Guardian co-published with Drilled

‘A Trojan horse of legitimacy’: Shell launches a ‘climate tech’ startup advertising jobs in oil and gas

Onward touts a vision of a ‘clean energy future’, but experts say ventures like this are part of fossil fuel firms’ greenwashing plan

Molly Taft
Wed 28 Feb 2024 21.53 GMT
First published on Mon 26 Feb 2024 19.00 GMT

A sleek new startup promising to ‘advance the energy transition’ launched earlier this month promising to “[connect] thousands of innovators across the globe to tackle difficult energy and climate challenges”.

The venture, Onward, is owned by Shell, a company that brought in $28bn in profits from oil and gas last year. The company’s website says it is “accelerating pathways to energy innovation”, serving as a “hub for innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurialism”, and creating a “compelling, evidence-based picture of the benefits of a net-zero future”. Team bios include descriptions of an ideal day “in our clean energy future”: kitesurfing, snorkeling and hiking.

However, despite an abundance of green imagery and language, much of platform, which until recently was called Studio X, appears to focus on improving oil and gas outcomes, an analysis by Drilled and the Guardian has found.

The site’s “Projects” section is a short-term job board hosting dozens of jobs in oil and gas exploration (the hiring companies are kept anonymous). Of the five projects with available descriptions, all but one are explicitly for oil and gas production, while many more of the archived jobs on the platform also appear to be for oil and gas.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/26/shell-climate-tech-startup-onward-oil-gas-jobs-greenwashing

Alternate link at Drilled: A startup promises to 'advance the energy transition.' It's run by Shell.