alexlockwood.net

Energy company (didn’t they used to be an oil company?) Shell are running a series of web dialogues, with today’s (6am GMT time, unfortunately they are not supplying the coffee) on ‘Sustainability Communications’ with their V-P for Comms, Björn Edlund.

Early skirmishes between the Comms team and the great unwashed (it is 6am) remind me something of either a manicured garden or Capoeira - well managed and quite elegant to look at or watch, in its own way. If Bjorn and his team are not at present reclining in Lazy Boys in reality, metaphorically it seems they are. Perhaps that is the nature of self-selection for those who would be taking part in such a web chat.

The most interesting Q/A so far (6.32am) is this:

Question from C.Foretti translated from Italian: Is there any evidence that the value of energy companies is significantly influenced (positively or negatively) by their choices re sustainability? If one could somehow verify that this is the case, then it would be possible to reassess the energy efficiency activities, in order to supplement profitability with greater sustainability

Speaker: Alger Steenhuis, Investor Relations: There have been multiple academic research studies to explore the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors (or sustainability) and the share price performance of companies - overall the overwhelming majority of the studies point to either a neutral or positive relationship over time. In the last few years, the financial markets have been increasingly focusing on how companies approach ESG for amongst others risk assessment purposes. For energy companies specifically, Goldman Sachs for example has published an advanced approach showcasing the relationship of ESG and the expected performance of energy companies. At Shell our approach to sustainability is an integrated part of our strategy and we believe it helps us to manage and reduce risks, helps us to earn our licence to operate and grow, develop the right products and maximise business opportunities. Our energy efficiency programme is a good example of how our approach can actually reduce costs; our energy efficiency initiatives in our downstream operations have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by some 1.7 million tonnes per year, saving us some $180 million. We are now putting energy management systems in place for more than 50 of our major assets in the upstream.

Much of the rest of the debate, effectively polite, is centred around the things you could easily read (at, say, 8.30am, over a Danish (pardon me, Bjorn)) from their Sustainability Report. It is quite interesting to read that their ‘peer reviewers’ comments are published in the back of that document.

Aha, success. My pre-submitted question, which is not particularly insightful, but something I was curious about anyway, has just been answered:

A question from alexlockwood: There are many different sources for guidance and development of messaging that Shell could draw on for best practice in sustainability communications, including its own staff and historical practices, but also academic disciplines such as media communications, psychology, and even philosophy. Can I ask where and how Shell engages with critical thinking around its communications, and what criteria it uses for assessing its messaging once it is ready to enter the public domain?

Speaker: Andrew Eddy, Head of Comms, UK: Alex - thank you for your question. We have relationships with various Academic Institutions which have an array of critical thinkers in the Communications space. Right now for example some of my colleagues are at Henley Business School in the UK attending a special program about Communication and Reputation. We also have close relations with Duke University, North Carolina, George Washington University in Washington DC and IMD Lausanne Switzerland amongst others. Before finalising our messaging we review the content in the context of our Shell Brand values. We aspire to build our Brand to be about our technology, our portfolio and our people. And our communications are developed to reflect these attributes.

A bit of a selfish one that. While at the Crisis Forum workshop last Friday, Rob Johnson, Professor in History from the University of Bath, was emphatic in the need to work from within organisations and government (within the institutions of 21st century power) to affect change. While on the train with my good friend D, she was also exhorting me to go for a drink with an old University acquaintance who now works for Shell. Know their mind, she said.

It is welcome that Shell enacts such web dialogues, although they are themselves instances of the relational power that such a large corporation has. They are also caught in the mirror stage, reflecting back only what they aspire to in their Brand. Interestingly, a search on Shell’s brand values only returns results with a % attached. That’s only a singe bottom line.

But the most recent question (6.42am) makes me think of Communications work not, as Bjorn describes it, as “making things real and relevant to those with a stake in the matter at hand.” This is prescriptive to both its intended aims and limited results. Rather, communications work has a much broader role in playing what Foucault has often called a “truth game”. It is not to see what is “real” or “relevant” and only to those with a “stake in the matter at hand”. Rather, what effect does such communication have on our relation to truth. In other words, what ‘truth’ are they trying to have us believe is “real and relevant” and, even more crucially, to limit in fact who “has a stake” in the matter.

Take this next (pre-submitted) question:

Warren: Many people are now speaking the language of the three hard truths - some ads for other oil companies have “borrowed” our terms - they too speak of the end of easy oil and hard truths of the energy challenge…that’s flattering. but also begs question of how do we differentiate ourselves?

Speaker, Alexandra Wright, UK Communications: Hello Warren, The Three Hard Truths (demand for energy is growing rapidly; it is getting harder for supply of easily accessible oil and gas to keep up with demand; and CO2 emissions are set to rise, as concerns about climate change grow) are a reality and we are encouraged that others recognize this too.

Our differentiation comes from how we tackle the challenges associated with these Hard Truths. We believe Shell is unique by being positive about energy and how energy can help the world achieve a responsible energy future.

We also believe that by having responsible and creative people, supported by the best possible technology and ideas, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors. This is what we aim to communicate.

What are these capitalisations of Hard Truths? And why are there only Three? Do they correlate with the “Three Dimensional Risk Environment” in which, asks CA Steward, Shell views “Sustainability” as an issue related more to the Compliance or Reputation risk…? Or, taking a lead from Zahi, are these Three Hard Truths (correlating perhaps to the Three Wise Men/Monkeys) a representation of the “FRS (Full-Range-Sustainability)” model of communication that should have “better effects on Society, Environment and Economy [and] have a higher ROI than a classical product performance communication”?

Whose truth is it, anyway?

Look again at what Warren is saying:

…Many people are now speaking the language of the three hard truths…

…some ads for other oil companies have “borrowed” our terms…

…they too speak of the end of easy oil and hard truths of the energy challenge…

…that’s flattering. but also begs question of how do we differentiate ourselves…

The Three Hard Truths are a corporate global message of Shell activity, as evidenced in its capillaration through the media communications landscape–that is, Bjorn and his team have been pretty successful in placing the THT meesage. A speech by Rob Routs at Cornell University. Picked up by US News. And an editorial from Jeroen van der Veer (CE of Royal Dutch Shell) in the Times.

Shell have done extremely well if “the language of the three hard truths” (black mark, Warren, they Should Be Capitalised) is being disseminated through the media-communications-complex. That means, of course, that other truths are not getting ‘out’. As Willy de Backer says, Shell have forgotten a few. And that is the point, at least for students of language and power.

It is worth reflecting on Shell’s Three Hard Truths in light of Foucault’s constellation of ‘propositions’ of truth:

‘Truth’ is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation, and operations of statements.

‘Truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power that produce and sustain it, and to effects of powert which it induces and which extend it–a ‘regime’ of truth.

This regime is not merely ideological or superstructural; it was a condition of the formation and development of capitalism…

The problem is not changing people’s consciousness–or what’s in their heads–but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth. It’s not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power (which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it operates at the present time.

That is, it is not a matter of criticising Shell for operating with ’sustainabiity communications’ as its method of making ‘real and relevant’ its operations. Rather, it is of unpicking what Shell enforces as ‘real’ and what truths, by logical extension, are not ‘real and relevant’, those that remain hidden, that are outside of the ‘three’ which it includes in its ‘regime’ at the expense of others, and as such, examining its own relations the power of truth. These Three Truths are a formation of the regime of capitalist truth power production that, while accepting and communicating and enforcing three truths, expel and reject others. This is not just about ‘greenwash’ but about the conditions for capitalism.

And later, Warren’s reply to Alexandra’s reply:

Hi Alexandra. Thanks for the reply… I agree, its our people, their attitudes and mindsets, and our values, that will differentiate us…but that’s a harder challenge to communicate than more technical information about sustainability. Although our recent campaigns, like Say no to no, have done a good job in doing so, in my view… I think direct engagements are also very helpful in this kind of communications and advocacy. People tend to believe you more if they can engage/question you, I find.

Thanks Warren, you’ve summed up why Shell (and I assume Warren is an employee, taking of ‘our people’) would engage in such a web dialogue in the first place.

And double success. Two questions answered:

alexlockwood: If there were time, would Bjorn be able to expand on what he believes is “the real issue we’re trying to address” as he states it in his question below. That is, everything so far is pretty straightforward, but that doesn’t sound to me like the world that either Shell is operating in, or we are living in. What about credit, peak oil, addressing 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. Is it possible?

Speaker, Björn: Hi Alex - It can be all and any of that. I was referring to how to communicate - looking at a concrete issue (credit, peak oil, reductions in emissions, energy frameworks, etc) and going through it from all angles. As to your question about reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050, that is a matter of public policy, political will and the willingness of people to change their life style. Do I think it is a realistic goal, and likely to be achieved? I don’t know, is the answer. It would mean a major shift in society’s priorities. Do you think it is possible? For us, the challenge is that whatever governments decide, to continue to supply the energy the world needs.

My response to this was: “thanks Bjorn for your answer, appreciated. 80% by 2050 is not only possible, it is necessary, and more importantly it is the manner - the emissions pathway - that we choose to get there that is even more relevant. I’m sure you know Kevin Anderson’s work on this, from the Tyndall Centre.”

Last Word

My favourite unintended comment of the web chat is from Bjorn: “I wonder whether we need to broaden the definition. I think, in fact, we need to make sustainability more concrete.” In fact, concrete is the last thing we need.

Seriously though, for any Communications Professional to declare that any term, word, definition, can be “fixed” implies, at the philosophical level at least, there is a failure to grasp language’s resistance to fixed and ‘concrete’ meanings. Or, to look at the embedded, perhaps unconscious truth that is part of Bjorn’s regime, because it is certainly understood that truth = power in many parts of the world today, that it is recognised that a fixed language means control. If one can control it. Everything Kafka wrote was about this.

This is not only in the form of a Language of Resistance, but that is one logical manifestation. Language would resist this use if it were to become absolutist and inflexible. The value and force of language comes exactly in its resistance to such forms of power and abuse of such power from anywhere on the political spectrum. Deconstruction is perhaps the least inadequate explanation of this behaviour of language. To have one single definition of sustainabiity–so whose would it be? Shell’s? Concrete does for words as much as it does for paradise. Just ask Joni Mitchell.

Full transcipt: shell-webchat.

(x-posted at The Current Climate)