Thoughts for people working in fossil fuel production

Update, Thu 24 July 2025:

• The inevitable is here: Countries that do not act to prevent climate change could be breaching international law and may have to pay reparations to nations who are affected by climate change

• Anna Black introduced me to WorkforClimate, which I promptly joined. If you're a fossil fuel worker and keen to learn how to be a positive agent for change in your organisation, you could join me.

First, a disclaimer:

These are my personal views, not the views of any organisation I have worked for or with, or currently work for or with. You are free to disagree, just do it with independent, verified data and respect for anyone else commenting on the thread. Thank you.

TLDR;

• The move towards governments and companies being held accountable for their contribution to climate change is inevitable.

• Whether it'll happen quickly enough to slow down the rate of climate change is not clear.

• If we don't make the changes necessary swiftly, there's a solid chance our economic system will teeter (it's already happening in some areas).

• People working inside fossil fuel companies can be a positive and proactive force for change in the right direction without having to be subversive or malicious. I hope they rise to the challenge.

But first, a primer on why this matters in Australia particularly:

Harm - including climate change - is the inevitable outcome of how we've applied Australian company law so far

The Corporations Act sets out the duties of a board member, a.k.a. non-executive director or NED. The NED's highest obligation is to the organisation.

Not the employees, not the customers, and definitely not society, other species or the planet.

While it's not explicit in the law, this duty has been interpreted in Australia as a NED's highest obligation being to the shareholders who own the organisation. From there, it's loosely translated to share price and returns. This is known as shareholder primacy.

The impact? Shareholder returns are treated as higher priority than the survival of our planet and the species living here, including humankind.

Further, the penalty for failing to uphold your obligation as a NED is you can be personally sued.

That's right: NEDs risk their personal wealth if they fail to prioritise the organisation. Which more or less translates to keeping share price sustainably high.

The board members of fossil fuel companies like Woodside and BHP are obliged to prioritise share price over stopping climate change until:

• They can no longer avoid acknowledging their company's contribution to destroying the systems that create value for their shareholders - i.e. their company's shares will become worthless in a planet with irreparable environmental harm, or

• The law changes.

At least, that's how it stands at the moment.

And we've been slow to the party on the change front because...

Subordinating shareholders would harm the (financial) value of our wealthiest citizens

...including everyone with superannuation invested in fossil fuel companies.

Given how much prestige we attach to money, it's no surprise that many of our wealthiest Australians would balk at voluntarily reducing theirs.

But people assume they won't be around to learn the following firsthand:

When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.'

- Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki from the Odanak reserve, seventy odd miles northeast of Montreal (also widely attributed as a Cree proverb)

Financial wealth won't seem so fabulous if we carry on as we have been.

C-suite and NED representatives of fossil fuel companies would have to be ...rather bold... to state that it would be in shareholders' best interests to destroy the very economy in which shareholder wealth is derived, never mind the destruction of our quality of life.

And destroy it may do, if you believe this Allianz manager's take in The Guardian in April this year:

In case you were wondering, it is absolutely already happening. Take the rise of uninsurability in Victoria as an example. I've written in more depth about this impact on personal finance on my blog if you fancy a diversion.

With klaxons like uninsurability sounding off, I'd guess continuing to pull carbon out of the ground might expose NEDs to more risk of being sued than the reverse these days.

Whether boardroom discussions are seriously considering their company's contribution to systemic collapse I don't know, but change is afoot outside boardrooms:

1. Governments could be held to account - very soon

Tomorrow the International Court of Justice will issue its Advisory Opinion on climate change.

Vanuatu, the nation leading the case, hopes the Opinion will show "States have had long-standing legal obligations to act on climate change, including obligations rooted in human rights and environmental law."

Like many around the world, I wait with bated breath and every digit crossed in hope the ICJ does as Vanuatu wishes.

Whichever way the ICJ goes, I believe it's inevitable that legal cases will force governments to force corporations to reinterpret shareholder primacy in a way that limits (or even forbids) harm to planet and people eventually.

2. Companies already are (yay!)

A regional court in Germany found private companies can be held liable for their contribution to climate damage in late May 2025.

Read the full article on The Conversation - it's worth it.

I reckon it is only a matter of time till this happens in Australia too. It would be a balm after last week's Australian climate change federal court case result.

...which brings me to employees of fossil fuel companies below C-suite and board level and why I don't begrudge them.

The fossil fuel industry pays well. No wonder people are attracted to it.

By the time they’re due long service leave and are coming up for promotion, it’s a challenge to escape those golden handcuffs.

But I reckon it's okay to keep working there even if you're having doubts. Call me naive or foolish, but I reckon:

People can work for positive change from inside fossil fuel companies, too

...and I don't mean in a subversive way.

I’m talking about normal folks doing their job with a view to the world’s betterment along with their employer’s success. The company wins long term because there's still a viable planet for them to operate on, the planet wins, humanity wins. Best case scenario.

I’ve been a tiny cog in the system* enough times to see the impact is possible, and very satisfying.

These people become the internal conscience to help steer the ship they’re on away from impending disaster. Like a proverbial Titanic but this time hopefully they listen to the crew and avoid the iceberg. There's enough legal precedent being set around the globe to strengthen any case for leaving as much carbon in the ground as possible, and decarbonising operations as fully as possible.

If there’s a glimmer of willingness to change in the C-suite and boardroom at your fossil fuel-producing employer, it could be worth sticking around to be part of the groundswell.

Your voice might help encourage leaders to make better decisions, hamstrung though they may feel by their outdated interpretation of shareholder primacy. Keep reporting your dissatisfaction with the climate change outcomes of your employer's decisions on those pulse surveys, folks.

But please also remember: you are actively shielded from the worst of your company's reputation and the best of climate science. I'm happy to describe the two situations of active shielding I've witnessed firsthand in the last few years if you need evidence.

Either way, I remain convinced employees of those companies can be a force for good in this challenge if we include them in the struggle instead of treating them as the opposition.

Obviously, employees can’t do it alone.

We need governments, politicians, activists, campaigners, entrepreneurs, customers, suppliers and the general public to keep pressure for change on these companies. That impetus combines with employee voices to shift the company’s decision-making until they course-correct, to the greater good of the planet and humanity. 

However...

I do begrudge C-suite leaders and board members of fossil fuel extracting and producing companies, and politicians

These are the people with the power to make the changes we need.

We need to stop pretending personal responsibility (like not shopping at Temu**) will fix climate change swiftly enough to matter, and instead focus relentlessly on convincing producers to leave carbon in the ground.

* My tiny cog experience: I've worked in fossil fuels, too.

My technical career has included fossil fuels:

• As a vacation student at BP Refinery in Brisbane in 2002.

• Sporadic operational improvement consulting over a decade to BHP including their coal mining and processing operations in New Mexico, South32's coal processing in New South Wales, and Adani's Carmichael rail project in Queensland.

• Facilitating systems thinking and design thinking training for Woodside's leadership program Navigator for two years.

That's right: Woodside, Adani and BHP are companies I've worked for and with in my career as a chemical engineer, operational improvement consultant and coach. Hard to find a more polluting bunch if you're looking at where their products end up.

I've been on the inside, diving deep into over a dozen operations and some substantial companies, mostly to help them do what they do with less waste.

** Yes, Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill really blamed young people shopping on Temu for fossil fuel consumption:

Out of touch AND failing Root Cause Analysis 101 there, O'Neill.

I'm glad she's saying the quiet bits out loud now, and her quotes recorded for posterity. This is the kind of misguided opinion giving us the North West Shelf projects of the world and allowing leaders in fossil fuel companies to sleep at night.