Geoscientist Online

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart has had a distinguished career in the extractive industries culminating in being chairman of Shell, and non-executive chairman of Anglo-American. He was President of the Geological Society from 2004-06. He spent much of his career overseas with Shell and he is admirably placed to offer insights from the front line of sustainability and ethics seen through the workings of large multi-national companies concerned with extraction of natural resources.

This book is part memoir, part reflection on the lessons learned from the issues and dilemmas faced on that journey. It is an engaging, insightful and even sympathetic book that outlines the pressures and challenges on companies working in different parts of the world in an industry that is often critical to the local economy, and which can be regarded as exploitative. It engages with relations with Government and the work done in setting up the UN Global Compact, it champions coalitions involving business, government and civil society, and it makes the case that we should continue to interact with countries with poor records on human rights.

Mary Robinson comments ‘This is an insightful book from a business leader who is willing to discuss openly the dilemmas and shortcomings of business in the area of human rights’. Mark Moody-Stuart is a strong believer in the power of the markets, but he emphasizes the need for regulation, and that corruption is the biggest market failure of all. Companies can make significant contributions in very poor countries, both by offering employment and by building the capacity of local entrepreneurs as dealers and stockists. There is analysis of the lessons learned from China on poverty eradication, and of Shell’s annus horribilis in 1995. This included the public reaction to the decision to dispose of the Brent Spar in the deep Atlantic, and the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who had been involved in protests against Shell, by the government of Nigeria. There is discussion of the role of individuals in determining the behavior of a company, of structure and governance, and of incentivisation. The book closes with a chapter on NGOs and a summary of Mark Moody-Stuart’s life and career.

I greatly enjoyed this wide ranging book, it prompted reappraisal of a range of issues linked to the extraction of natural resources. It will surely be widely read by people in business, but perhaps more so it deserves to be read by those outside business, who are concerned and alarmed by the role of multi-national companies, human rights and the protection of the environment. This is a view from the inside, one we don’t hear often, and there is much to recommend it.

Chris Hawkesworth, University St Andrews