CONTRIBUTING TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Our Business Principles include contributing to sustainable development, which for us means helping to meet the world’s growing energy needs in economically, environmentally and socially responsible ways. This is about our products: producing more cleaner-burning natural gas, for example, or working to build a transport biofuels business. It is about our operations: building projects, running facilities and managing our supply chain safely, and in ways that mitigate environmental impacts and create benefits in the societies where we operate. It is about our people: using their expertise, creativity and skill so we can compete successfully and help meet the energy challenge. It is also about our relationships: with customers, business partners, governments, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations, and our neighbours.
Contributing to sustainable development means consciously balancing short- and long-term interests; integrating economic, environmental and social considerations into business decisions; and regularly engaging with our many stakeholders.
TALKING ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY
Contributing to sustainable development is integral to who we are and what we do. So we talk regularly about sustainability in our engagements with investors, governments and communities and in our company advertising. We aim to do so honestly, using our definition of sustainable development. This definition is in line with the Brundtland Commission’s. It includes not only sustainability’s environmental dimensions, but its economic and social aspects as well. It underlines the need to maintain economic growth and reduce poverty by providing more energy. That can lead to debate, since there are different views about what “sustainability” or “sustainable development” means, and about what an energy company’s contribution should be. In 2008, one of our advertisements was challenged in the UK by an environmental NGO for calling several of our investments to meet growing energy demand “sustainable” that, in their view, were not. Their complaint was upheld by the UK Advertising Standards Authority.
