Radical transformation and voluntary company targets

In 1998, we set ourselves voluntary targets for making absolute reductions in our operational GHG emissions. We met our first one in 2002 and continue working towards our second – keeping GHG emissions from our operations at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2010. The targets helped us focus our efforts and showed commitment at a time when government policies were scarce and few oil and gas companies had accepted the need for action. But the world has moved on and so has the scale of the climate change challenge. Today, we are the only major oil and gas company still to have a target to reduce its total GHG emissions. But we don’t believe relying on voluntary caps by individual companies is the best way to tackle climate change. So instead, to get all companies and all sectors to act, we are encouraging government regulations that reward lower CO₂ sources of energy and greater energy efficiency. We are also moving to targets for individual facilities to help our operations improve their energy efficiency and manage CO₂. The ambition for most assets will be to have CO₂ emission levels that are in the top 25% of similar facilities. Achieving this will involve a combination of greater energy efficiency and further progress on CCS.