First, can you please give us an idea of the sort of work your team has done recently?

Shell legal team has recently given priority to digitalisation, with respect to the recent developments of the Covid-19 Pandemic, to improve the remote working conditions and provide continuous workflow during the pandemic. In this context, a three-step “digitalisation” project has been developed. First, a “webtool” for retail agreements has been developed, where Shell personnel can log-in and fill-in agreements online. Herewith, now all employees can directly access template contracts. Second, the e-signature project has been developed to sign all contracts online, where Shell Türkiye is a party, to achieve time and cost savings and to contribute to the ecosystem in an environment-friendly manner. Third, the “litigation tool” project has gone live to manage all legal affairs under a single platform. With the implementation of this litigation tool, the workload of the legal team has been reduced and productivity has increased – as both the internal and the external legal counsel can access the litigation information and documents online. Furthermore, in-company awareness trainings have been held for GDPR and Turkish personal data protection law, antitrust law, and digital retail contracts for all employees online.

Even in the best-case scenario, Covid is likely to have far-reaching ramifications. How are you safeguarding the long-term health of the business?

The long-term health has been provided through all necessary technical support and through ensuring that all our teammates working from home did not experience any difficulties during this period. In addition, each week Covid-19 information is provided by our workplace physician via online regular meetings, where all company employees can attend. In addition to these, additional measures have been taken to reduce the formation of viruses and bacteria with the ozone devices used in company quarters.

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected the company and the team’s priorities?

Climate change is an urgent and non-negligible challenge, both globally and under Shell’s priority agenda. The target is to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in step with society’s progress in achieving the goal of the UN Paris Agreement on climate change. Within this scope, we are transforming our business and finding new opportunities to provide more low carbon energy, such as biofuels, hydrogen, charging for electric vehicles and electricity generated by solar and wind power. At the same time, we are partnering with customers, businesses, and governments to address emissions, including in sectors that are difficult to de-carbonise such as aviation, shipping, road freight and industry. Shell will continue to drive innovation to provide the cleaner energy that our customers and society need.