The term “climate quitters” emerged in 2023 to describe people who leave jobs they feel are environmentally-destructive for roles they believe are on the right side of the fight against climate change.
People like Caroline Dennett, a British safety engineer who quit Shell after 10 years of working for the oil and gas giant, because she could “no longer work for a company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” as she explained in a resignation video that went viral on LinkedIn last year.
Anyone from any industry can be a climate quitter. James Greet worked in advertising for more than 30 years in the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific until he had had enough of promoting climate-harming clients. “I was increasingly aware that the better I was at my job, the worse I was making things. I was creating demand for stuff that people do not need,” he told Eco-Business. Greet launched The Payback Project, which helps brands promote more sustainable ways of living, in Australia last year.
Much like the energy sector, the advertising industry’s biggest players have been slow to align their business models with the change needed to address climate change. Greet has worked for the industry’s biggest agency groups – WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis Groupe – which have ignored pressure from environmental groups and the United Nations to stop working for climate-wrecking oil majors.
Working for Big Oil in Australia risks agencies’ reputation and their ability to attract and retain young talent – the lifeblood of the advertising industry. But Greet concedes that a tough job market in Australia may be slowing the flow of climate quitters out of big agencies. “Few young people want to jeopardise what pay their wages and puts food on the table,” he said.
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I was increasingly aware that the better I was at my job, the worse I was making things.
James Greet, co-founder, The Payback Project
In the energy sector, the movement of people from the fossil fuel sector into clean energy positions has grown globally over the last eight years, according to a study of green skills by LinkedIn. “There is clearly a desire from individuals to use their experience and skills in a more positive environment,” said Paddy Balfour, Asia Pacific executive director of sustainability-focused recruitment firm Acre.
According to LinkedIn’s data, for every 100 workers who left the renewable energy sector globally between 2015 and 2023, 120 workers joined. But the flow of talent varies by country. In Australia and Indonesia, the fossil energy sector is still growing, while in India and Singapore, it is in decline.
There is also growing demand for renewables skills as the sector expands, including in oil and gas companies that are building out clean energy capacity. LinkedIn’s study finds that the prevalence of “green” skills in the oil and gas industry has risen consistently between 2016 and 2023, and now one-fifth of the sector claims to have green skills such as energy efficiency analysis and sustainable resource management.
However, Balfour observes that the shift of oil and gas executives into renewables roles could be slowing as large corporates roll back their climate targets. Shell and BP have both weakened their carbon emissions reduction targets this year to focus on their more profitable core oil and gas businesses.
Eco-Business interviewed three executives who have shifted from fossil fuels to clean energy to get a sense of how the renewables sector is different, and understand the challenges energy professionals face when making the switch.
Camillus Yang joined Sunseap because he wanted to protect his investment in the solar company, and because he wanted a new challenge. He left the firm in 2018 and is now a co-founder of a renewables advisory firm. Image: Camillus Yang
Camillus Yang: From Shell to Sunseap, then a renewables entrepreneur
Camillus Yang took an 80 per cent pay cut when he left Shell for Sunseap, a Singaporean solar company that he had invested in twice – Series A and Series B – before joining as chief finance officer in 2015, teaming up with co-founder and former primary school classmate Lawrence Wu.
Yang joined Sunseap because he wanted to protect his investment, but also because he wanted a new challenge. “I was bored,” he said, reflecting on 13 years at Shell in which he first worked in the finance team at a lubricants plant, then in liquid natural gas (LNG) trading, and later in a global planning and appraisal role for upstream LNG. A 100-page report by JP Morgan on the energy transition helped to convince him to make the switch.
It was an exciting time to be in renewables. “Everybody was calling us to partner with them, because Sunseap were one of the frontrunners,” recalls Yang. The speed of decision-making was much faster than in oil and gas, where most opportunities would have to be run by the headquarters in London.
It was also less hierachical and decisions were made by just the four ‘Sunseap seniors’, Yang said, referring to the veterans on the company’s management team. “We would use Whatsapp to make a decision, and then [it would just be] ‘let’s go!’” he said.
Yang’s role at Sunseap was also more than a CFO. “When I came in, I did a bit of everything – as you do in small and medium enterprises; I did special projects, implemented a new IT system, hired people.” A 26 megawatt-peak solar farm in Cambodia was among the deals he helped finance.
His main job was raising funding. He was known as “the grant king” at Sunseap, because of the many grants he successfully applied for while at the company. He helped to bring in Shell as a Series C investor in 2017. A few years later, Sunseap was acquired by Portuguese firm EDP Renewables in a deal worth S$1.1 billion (US$816 million) that made several million for Yang and his co-investors; Yang’s investment had grown five-fold.
But after a few years, he wanted a change. “I was at Sunseap for close to three years, but it felt like 10. It was very intense meeting banks and investors everyday.” Yang co-founded a new renewables advisory firm, aNew Energy, in 2018. His business partner is former Shell executive Sunny Lee.
Yang wanted to venture into wind, which Sunseap didn’t do, and take on a more advisory role, helping businesses to work out where the best opportunities are in renewables to generate good returns. Now he is involved in decarbonising data centres, which are expanding rapidly to meet rocketing demand for emissions-intensive artificial intelligence, as well as cross-border energy trading, carbon credits trading and sustainable fuels. He also sits on the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association of Singapore board as an executive committee member.
Importing renewables could play a key role in decarbonising Singapore’s grid, but Yang warned that energy costs will rise because of the high cost of subsea cables and energy storage. He is all too aware of the limitations of renewables in a market like Singapore, a tiny, land-scarce island, but is still motivated by filling gaps in the market.
One solution to ensure Singapore’s energy demands are met is to cover the island’s reservoirs with floating solar, which could generate power of a few gigawatt (GW), he said, although he noted that the city-state’s reservoirs are tricky to connect to the grid as they are located far from electricity substations. Another underexploited opportunity is to put solar panels on churches, of which there are more than 800 in Singapore, he suggested.
“A church is an ideal place for solar, because during the day there is no one at church, everybody’s at work. So you can export unused power to the grid, which can be monetised.” By Yang’s calculations, a single large church could generate S$1 million (US$742,000) a year from solar, “just as long as God lets the sun shine”.
Ping Mendoza was previously with Shell, leading the oil and gas major’s renewables arm in the Philippines. He moved to a pureplay renewables firm at the start of the year, soon after Shell changed its chief executive. Image: Ping Mendoza
Ping Mendoza: Riding the Philippines’ renewables rush
Ping Mendoza left Shell not long after the company installed a new chief executive, who has since steered the oil and gas major in a new direction. Shell rolled back its climate targets earlier this year, citing uncertainty in the energy transition. Earlier, Mendoza had been hired to develop Shell’s clean energy business in the Philippines. “When the Shell opportunity came along, I saw it as an opportunity to develop large-scale solar and wind, he said. “That sounded like an interesting story to be part of.”
After moving on from Shell in February, a new opportunity presented itself for Mendoza to lead the Philippines operation for a Singapore-headquartered pureplay renewables firm, which Mendoza preferred not to name. The job involves constructing, developing and operating clean energy projects in one of Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing markets – though energy prices in the Philippines are higher than anywhere in Southeast Asia besides Singapore, the cost of renewables is now cheaper than traditional energy sources.
Mendoza noted that in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a “rush” for energy companies to move into previously underexploited areas, such as remote island micro-grids that are electrifying farflung parts of the archipelago. The industry is no longer dominated by large local conglomerates as more foreign players move into the sector. “Even rooftop solar is picking up. As the cost of batteries falls, more opportunities will come. The time to shine is now,” he said.
There has also been a noticeable shift in the way that renewable energy is perceived in the Philippines, as the industry matures. “When I tell people I do solar or renewable energy, there is an instant recognition now. There is an understanding that it’s a good thing,” Mendoza said. “The Philippines doesn’t usually have many cool things to brag about. We tend to lag in technology. We import a lot from other countries. But solar could be big gamechanger for the country.”
According to think tank Global Energy Monitor, the Philippines will have added 17,809 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity and 7,856 MW of wind power by 2030 to emerge as Southeast Asia’s top green power producer, leapfrogging Vietnam.
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When I tell people I do solar or renewable energy, there is an instant recognition now. There is an understanding that it’s a good thing.
Ping Mendoza, former Shell renewable energy business development lead
“This will become a bigger issue as demand for renewable energy generation increases,” said Mendoza. Training centres for technical workers tend to be in cities far from where renewables projects are being deployed around the archipelago. Testing and certification centres are also limited to the most developed urban cities, he observed. While some large companies run recruitment drives, a more coordinated effort between universities, government and the private sector is needed to address the talent gap, suggested Mendoza.
“There’s so much work to do. There are a handful of really experienced people in the sector. But we need to get better at developing the talent pipeline.”
Shashank Swan worked in the coal sector in Indonesia before pivoting to renewables. “The social cost of coal-fired power plants is very high, but it is never factored into the price of coal-fired energy,” he said. Image: Shashank Swan
Shashank Swan: Deploying clean energy for an oil and gas giant
As a mechanical engineer, it was a fascination with how renewable energy works that sparked Shashank Swan’s decision to shift to a career in clean energy. “I was intrigued rather than wanted to change the world,” he said. “I viewed renewables purely from a scientific perspective. I wondered if solar energy, which powered space exploration with satellites like Viking in the 1980s, could one day power our world.”
Waste-to-energy, which Swan considers a form of renewable energy, also sparked his curiosity. “When I was growing up in India, I lived near an open landfill. I often wondered if all of those resources could be reused.”
Swan’s engineering career started in various fossil fuel-based sectors – oil field services and later coal-fired power stations in Indonesia. Working in the coal sector, Swan became increasingly aware of the high social and environmental cost of burning the world’s most pollutive power source. He also balked at how cheap coal was. “The social cost of coal-fired power plants is very high, but it is never factored into the price of coal-fired energy. It does not account for the carbon emissions and the medical problems burning coal causes for local communities,” he said.
Swan first dabbled in renewables in 2010. His first projects were in hydropower in Europe. But at that time, industry growth was sluggish and renewables were falling short of investor expectations.
“People believed that you could get rich quickly from renewables, because the fuel was free,” he said. “But it was a tough sector to make money from. There were few offtakers. It was just too expensive compared to fossil fuels, and storage technology was not well developed to mitigate the intermittency of solar and wind energy.” Swan didn’t transition to renewables earlier, because there was no money in it. “It’s simple economics. What’s the point of doing something, if you can’t survive or have a decent life?”
But in 2014, reports by the International Energy Agency that projected rapid renewables growth inspired Swan to persevere in clean energy. “The writing was on the wall. You could see that coal and other fossil fuels would peak. I thought that if you have the skillset for only one type of energy, you will eventually be out of a job.”
Swan now works for TotalEnergies, in the oil and gas major’s renewables division for Asia Pacific. He is part of a division working on the company’s ambition to install 100 gigawatts of renewable power generation capacity by 2030. The French firm was one of the first oil and gas giants to announce a net zero by 2050 target, although a non-profit has flagged that its target, like those of its major rivals, does not align with the Paris climate accord.
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The writing was on the wall. You could see that coal and the other fossil fuels would peak. I thought that if you have the skillset for only one type of energy, you will eventually be out of a job.
Shashank Swan, engineer, renewables division, Asia Pacific, TotalEnergies
Swan notes that the financial returns from renewables are still not as high as oil and gas, and his company has been working on ways to lower costs. “Renewable energy is not a super-profitable business. The returns are generally low, unless you do multiple mega-scale projects,” he said. “Making decent money from small-scale projects is difficult.”
Swan believes that some – not all – oil and gas companies are well placed to lead the energy transition and break new ground in renewables additions. TotalEnergies’ clean energy division is “no longer an afterthought”, as perhaps it was 10 to 12 years ago, and the company is well on track to meet its decarbonisation target, Swan said.
“Oil and gas companies are used to working in tough, remote locations. They have the inherent patience to navigate tricky regulations and rules, and the upfront capital to invest and mitigate risk. Oil majors are well placed – if they seriously decide to transition. Renewables is no longer just a sales pitch at a conference.”
