Shell Center for Sustainability

The Shell Oil Company Foundation announced the establishment of the Shell Center for Sustainability at Rice University in Houston. The Center with a $3.5 million endowment, announced in July 2002, will be a hub for collaboration by experts dealing with societal and environmental issues arising as a result of economic activities. The Center will foster opportunities for improvement through new technologies, market-based incentives, and other initiatives.

"We share with Rice University a commitment to finding innovative ways to meet the world's present and future needs," said Philip Watts, chairman of the committee of managing directors of Royal Dutch/Shell. "Shell believes it has a role to play in helping address the fundamental challenges facing society today." "We would like Shell to play its part toward solutions for today's challenges," Watts said.

"We believe corporate decision-making should be a critical component of the world's journey toward a sustainable future, and the foundation of this center demonstrates Shell's commitment to play a meaningful role in promoting understanding and employment of sustainable development principles in corporate decisions." "

We are immensely grateful to the Shell Oil Company Foundation for its generous grant to establish the Shell Center for Sustainability at Rice," said Rice President Malcolm Gillis. "Rice has long been committed to interdisciplinary research and practice as a strategy for improving social, environmental and economic welfare. Shell's commitment to exploring sustainability strategies across many academic and business disciplines together with its consistent support for sustainable development worldwide provides this new center with a foundation of creative and credible leadership in the field."

This Center will be characterized by its focus on encouraging:

• Collaboration across disciplines because by its nature sustainable development requires integrated solutions;
  
  
• Collaboration among business leaders, academia, non-government organizations, and senior policy advisors to move constructively from conflict to consensus on a variety of social, economic, and environmental issues facing the world.

The specific objectives of the Shell Center aim to:

• Create new technologies, processes, products, and market mechanisms that will advance sustainable economic growth and a sound public infrastructure;
  
  
• Develop new tools in engineering, the social sciences, and the natural sciences that enhance the understanding of requirements for sustainability, help remove institutional barriers to sensible environmental and social practices, and contribute to new policy instruments for achieving sustainability;
  
  
• Provide society with broadly educated environmental, technical, and natural resource experts to mold future decision-making in the private and public sectors to help assure a more sustainable future in both developed and developing nations;
  
  
• Enhance the exchange of information in the public and private sectors by serving as an independent forum for open discussion and constructive dialogue on sustainable development issues and policies across a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including U.S. and international business leaders, academia, NGOs, and senior policy makers;
  
  
• Research issues posed by environmental and societal impacts arising from economic activities;
  
  
• Develop new engineering and scientific curricula to educate a new generation of scientists who will incorporate sustainability concepts into business plans, designs, and processes;
  
  
• Advance thinking around market-based mechanisms that can be deployed to enhance sustainability;
  
  
• Develop linkages with other institutions and non-government organizations at a local, regional, national, and international level.