Our Corporate and Social Responsibility Committee assesses our policies and performance with respect to our Business Principles, Code of Conduct, Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) and major issues of public concern on behalf of the Board of Royal Dutch Shell. The committee is made up of three Non-executive Directors.
Management responsibility for sustainable development rests with our Chief Executive. He chairs Shell’s HSSE and Social Performance Executive Committee, which reviews performance and sets priorities, key performance indicators and targets. We have a Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainable Development, who is a member of our Executive Committee and reports directly to the Chief Executive.
Each business is responsible for complying with Shell’s environmental and social requirements and achieving its own specific targets in this area – based on the concept of top quartile (see below).
Sustainable development is also part of how we assess our performance and pay our people. It counts for 20% of the Shell Scorecard that we use in determining bonuses (see Fact sheet 2008).
AIMING FOR TOP QUARTILE OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE
We aim to be among the top 25% of our industry in all areas of our business: costs, the value we add and the environmental and social performance of our operations. We are translating this aim into concrete, operational targets for our individual facilities and businesses. Our refineries, for example, are benchmarked against each other on their performance and costs and against equivalent facilities run by competitors. Operational targets (which can include absolute reduction targets) are then defined for each facility. Facilities then work to meet or exceed those targets. If achieved, these targets, which include safety performance and energy efficiency, will move us to top quartile. Our oil and gas facilities, retail and distribution networks, even our company-wide functions like legal, communications or finance are all moving to this approach. We believe it is a better way to improve our operations than the absolute company-wide targets we have used in the past. The people running our facilities understand it; it results in targets and actions that are challenging and relevant to the facilities involved; and if achieved across the company, it will lead to significant improvements in our performance both compared to our competitors and in absolute terms.
