The gloves are off at British Polluters as sustainability chief “exits”
Polluters gonna pollute.
Recent months have seen a string of polluters scaling back their plans to reduce polluting. Recently, BP’s Executive Vice President for Strategy, Sustainability and Ventures Giulia Chierchia announced the company, “would pivot back to oil and gas in an effort to revive its ailing share price”. Similar moves have taken place with other polluters such as Shell, TotalEnergies, Equinor and Exxon.
However, it seems that bending the knee to the shareholders was not enough for Chierchia who is now set to “exit” BP:
The architect of BP’s failed green energy agenda will leave the embattled oil company within months as it continues its retreat from low-carbon investments amid a sharp fall in profits.
The oil company said Giulia Chierchia, the executive in charge of BP’s sustainability strategy, would step back from her role from 1 June 2025 to “pursue other opportunities” outside the company. She will not be replaced.
BP announced her departure weeks after its chair, Helge Lund, said he would step down from the company by next year, and later faced a shareholder rebellion at its AGM over his role in overseeing BP’s failed green agenda.
Chierchia and Lund had faced questions over their future in the months since BP abandoned its green strategy in favour of a renewed focus on oil and gas to increase its profits and bolster its flagging market value.
Chierchia’s sustainability team is to be scattered around the business to “simplify our structure” and offer “quicker decision-making and clearer accountabilities” for the polluting giant.
What we see here is the beginning of a new phase in the fight against the polluters. For some years the polluters gave the impression they were transitioning to a greener way of doing business. With one or two exceptions, this was a total scam. The change we are seeing now is that they no longer feel compelled to even lie about their polluting plans: the gloves are off and we have reached the bare-knuckle part of the fight.
Despite this, as we progress toward COP30—the global climate-focused conference later this year in Brazil—you will read more about efforts to expand renewable energy to give the impression that progress is being made.
Even when such renewable energy is actually been delivered, this too is an act of misdirection. Extra renewable capacity makes zero difference to pollution levels unless it is matched with a reduction in fossil fuels: at the moment, we keep burning the same amount of oil and gas and all that extra capacity from renewables is simply sucked up by an insatiable appetite for energy consumption.
But we should be thankful to the polluters for finally being honest that they have no plans to voluntarily stop killing us: with every rollback on climate and sustainability goals, more people see the truth and understand that the polluters must be compelled to change through force.