Former Shell, Anglo American leaders back new venture in resource conflict resolution

Resource Resolutions (RR), a new venture aimed at reducing growing societal and geopolitical divisions around natural resources, has announced a global advisory council comprised of eminent figures from industry, international diplomacy and academia to guide its work.

These include two leading executives who have provided seed capital for the venture:

• Chad Holliday, former chair of Royal Dutch Shell, former chair of Bank of America, and former CEO of DuPont. Holliday has also served as chair of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and chair of Mission Possible Partnership. He is the lead investor in RR and its chief advisor.
• Mark Cutifani, the former CEO of Anglo American plc, current chair of Vale Base Metals, and former CEO of AngloGold Ashanti. Known for his leadership in transforming companies and advocating for responsible mining practices, Cutifani is also a board member of TotalEnergies and Laing O’Rourke.

Other members of the advisory council are:

• Prof. Elizabeth Robinson, Acting Dean, Global School of Sustainability at the London School of Economics. A leading environmental economist, Robinson has also been the director of the LSE’s Grantham Institute on Climate Change, and has over 25 years of research experience, particularly in low-income countries.
• Dame Meg Taylor, former Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum. A leading advocate for conflict resolution and sustainable development, Taylor was founding vice president of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman at the World Bank, and ambassador of Papua New Guinea to the US, Mexico and Canada.
• Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella, former UN Under-Secretary General, former founding CEO of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, and former Director-General of UNIDO. A distinguished development and agricultural economist, Dr. Yumkella is now chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Food Security in Sierra Leone.

“We are delighted to welcome these illustrious figures to our global advisory council. Geopolitical tensions, climate change, societal polarization and distrust may lead to more and more conflict over natural resources in the years ahead,” Daniel Litvin, founder of RR, stated in a press release.

“In this fraught context, we aim to create a space for balanced dialogue. With its senior and diverse perspectives, the council will help us identify how to create common ground between different groups, corporate, government, local community, and civil society,” he added.

Litvin previously founded Critical Resource, a leading advisory firm on sustainability and geopolitical risks which he sold in 2020 to ERM, the world’s largest sustainability consulting firm. He is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and author of ‘Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility’.

The co-founder of RR is Chris Melville, formerly head of political risk with Tullow Oil, an Africa-focused upstream oil and gas company. Melville is a qualified community mediator and conflict resolution expert.

Greenland example

The founding of RR follows US President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about annexing Greenland, which has a strategic location and an abundance of critical mineral deposits, even if it means to use “military force”.

“I think what’s good about Greenland is it’s bringing a lot of attention to natural resources,” Holliday said in an interview with Bloomberg News last week. “When I was born, there were 2.5 billion of us. Now there’s 8 billion. We’ve just got to use these natural resources better to spread around to 8 billion people.”

Holliday also noted that the need to improve how those involved in natural resources deal with one another. At DuPont, for example, he said that some business leaders “weren’t very good” at taking in various perspectives, and so after they were dispatched into the field, they came back realizing “how poor a job they were doing of listening.”

Resource Resolutions, therefore, will have “endless” opportunities to smooth natural resource tensions through reconciliation, he added.

The venture, overseen by the global advisory council, will employ mediators and experts with experience working in natural resources and dealing with governments, local communities, hostile groups and commodities firms. They will encourage dialogue and try to anticipate any conflict before it happens.

Learn more about Resource Resolutions here.