Public governance versus corporate governance: Evidence from oil drilling in forests

Petroleum companies look for oil and gas in some of the most remote and biodiverse forested areas on the planet. To study how local environmental footprints vary across countries and companies, we combine global company-level geo-coded data on oil drilling with high resolution data on forest loss. We find that oil wells drilled in countries with better public governance, measured by democracy scores, are associated with substantially lower forest loss in the period after drilling. In contrast, we do not find evidence of less forest clearance among companies with presumptively ‘better’ corporate governance practices, such as major international companies, publicly listed companies, or members of an industry association committed to high environmental standards. These results do not support a “pollution halo” effect, whereby companies might bring better environmental practices with them, exceeding domestic environmental standards.publishedVersio

Towards Sustainability in the Oil and Gas Sector: Benchmarking of Environmental, Health, and Safety Efforts

The environmental, social and climate change issues that face the world today have all industries considering how they will address sustainability in the future. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the maturity of environmental, health and safety (EHS) efforts and progress toward sustainability in the oil and gas sector. Ten major oil companies have been analyzed based on public information including their published annual reports. Companies refer to voluntary initiatives when reporting their performance yet the assessment suggests that the sector overall continues to make progress and is maturing in its sustainability efforts. Many management system gaps were found that leave companies within this sector far from sustainable production and from being leaders in EHS Management. Most companies are still using lagging metrics and this is reflected in the activities implemented by companies. The sector’s EHS management status is found to be in the high middle/medium level of maturity. This means that the sector has made progress from simply embracing sustainability towards a commitment to addressing sustainability issues, but still has progress to make

Organizational Fields, Transnational Business Governance Interactions and the Diffusion of CSR

The paper analyzes the process of global diffusion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the oil industry and how interactions between different actors have contributed to this outcome. It starts from the empirical puzzle that CSR has spread globally among transnational corporations since the mid 1990s (diffusion of CSR as a dependent variable). To explain this phenomenon, the paper presents a theoretical argument based on insights from sociological neo-institutionalism. It uses the concept of organizational fields as social spaces where organizations interact with one another. The structuration of an organizational field leads to processes of homogenization among the organizations belonging to it. Empirically, the paper explores the case of the oil industry. It can be shown that an organizational field has developed around the issue of CSR. Actors constituting the organizational field are identified, including multi-stakeholder-initiatives (e.g. EITI and Voluntary Principles), international organizations, NGOs, governmental actors and transnational corporations. The organizations interact with each other and engage in the definition and promotion of CSR standards. As a result of field-level interactions an increasingly dense normative transnational environment has developed where expectations regarding the appropriate behavior of corporations are formulated. With regard to the dependent variable, data on the diffusion of CSR is presented and similarities and differences between corporate CSR approaches are discussed

THE BEHAVIOUR AND EFFECTS OF OIL POLLUTION INTO MARINE ENVIRONMENT AND OCEANS

U radu se analiziraju najnovija dostignuća vezana uz postupke koji se obavljaju prilikom izlijevanja nafte u more. U tom su smislu razmatrana neka od najvažnijih elemenata kao što su postupak u slučaju uništenja morskog okoliša i živih organizama, a koja predstavljaju posljedicu za morski okoliš u slučaju izlijevanja nafte, mogući utjecaj koji onečišćenje naftom može imati na okoliš i živa bića, kao i kako djeljuje proces raspadanja i isparavanja nafte na postupak čišćenja od zagađenja naftom. Kako bi se objelodanile najnovije informacije iz toga područja, u radu su prikazana postignuća nekih od najvažnijih autora i institucija koji se bave onečiščenjem naftom. Svi su autori jednoglasni u mišljenju da izlijevanje nafte može zaista jako oštetiti morski okoliš i žive organizme, te da proces raspadanja i isparavanja nafte može i na pozitivan i na negativan način djelovati na postupke skupljanja nafte.The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the latest developments in connection to the management of oil spills at sea. In this function, some of the most important elements such as behaviour, fate and effects that oil spills undergo when introduced into the marine environment , the possible impact that oil pollution may have on wild life and environment as well as the implications that oil weathering process has toward clean-up operation are discussed in his paper. In order to reveal the most substantial information regarding this issue some of the prestigious authors and organizations that deal with oil pollution at sea such as Brown, Parker, IPIECA and so forth are used in this paper . The authors are overall of the opinion that indeed the oil spills can heavily harm the marine environment and wild life and that the weathering process of oil may impact positively or negatively the clean-up operations

Incorporating Environmental and Social Factors into Decision-making of an Oil and Gas Industry to Improve Sustainability

The energy industry (including the oil and gas industry) is facing unparalleled scrutiny and demands from stakeholders including investors, regulators (industry and environmental), communities, and other stakeholders. Sustainable development is one of the major concerns of the oil and gas industry. Companies are seeking to increase sustainability of their operations by considering environmental and Social concerns in addition to economic concerns. Oil and gas companies need to take decisions at different stages of the product life cycle (e.g. planning, design, exploration, production, and clean-up) which have direct or indirect impact on the organization\u27s objectives. Addressing economic, technical, Social, and environmental risks and opportunities during decision-making is critical to fulfill stakeholders\u27 and organization\u27s objective and ultimately to the success of a project. This research provides a framework and a model that integrates sustainability into decision-making

Sustainability Reporting in a Large Russian Oil Corporation. Production Safety Issues

Doctoral thesis (Ph.D.) – University of Nordland, 201

Comparative study of the quality of risk disclosures in shareholders and stakeholder reports between developed and developing countries (case: oil industry)

The current global and competitive environment in which companies within the oil and gas (O&G) sector find themselves requires a greater degree of information that allows users to have a better understanding of the companies’ economic situation and risks they face. For that reason, there is a need to mitigate negative impacts that affect their activities. The objective of this research is to perform a comparative study between the quality of risk disclosures in shareholder and stakeholder reports of O&G companies, headquartered in developed (Canada, the UK and the US) and developing countries (Colombia, Brazil and Argentina) listed on their local stock exchange for the period 2016-2017; their size and its propensity to follow IPIECA (2015) as a voluntary industry guide to produce stakeholders' reports. Using the quantity of risk keywords as indicative of risk quality disclosures by following Bareta and Bonzolan, (2004) approach. The following findings were encountered: (a) companies based in developed countries tend to disclose high-quality risks in their shareholder reports, however the difference compared to developing countries is not significant due to the accounting globalized principles used. Stakeholder reports quality is highly associated with the adoption of industry-specific voluntary guidelines in both developed and developing countries. Additionally, the findings show that the quality of risk disclosures can also be influenced by stakeholder pressures that cause companies to change their reporting approach, in both developed and developing countries; (b) the size of the company in terms of total assets is not a determining factor that influences the company quality of risk disclosures nor for shareholders or stakeholder reports of the companies in developed or developing country; (c) The use of the voluntary guidelines of O&G (IPIECA), develops and improves risk disclosures quality in the shareholder and stakeholder reports of companies within the industry to enable good practices

Understanding the use of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to address climate change by oil and gas companies in developing nations

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a tool which oil and gas (O&G) companies can use to voluntarily go beyond compliance with laws and regulations to address sustainability issues. This research examines the reported use of CSR by O&G companies operating in developing nations to address climate change mitigation and adaptation. Developing nations may lack regulation, capability or willingness to require O&G companies to take steps to mitigate or adapt to climate change due to weak institutional structures, lack of enforcement of regulations, and the competing interests of economic development and tackling climate change. The first aim of the research was to establish whether there is recognition of the issue of climate change in the CSR Reports of O&G companies operating in developing nations. If so, what are the strategic responses by these companies to climate change? The second aim was to explore if O&G companies who operate in developing nations are using CSR programmes to conduct climate change mitigations and adaptation activities. If so, what are these mitigations or adaptations that are being deployed voluntarily as CSR? The method included a literature review and then an analysis of the CSR Reports of 20 O&G companies with operations in developing nations. Questions were established to identify what strategies, if any, companies were deploying to mitigate and adapt to climate change. These questions were used to collect data from the CSR Reports of 20 O&G companies with operations in developing nations. The research found that O&G companies operating in developing nations are deploying strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Most companies recognised climate change as an issue in their CSR Reports and had deployed strategic responses to climate change as CSR. These responses included memberships of voluntary organisations, GHG emissions reporting and reduction, investment in renewable energy and other activities such as tree planting and deployment of carbon capture and storage technology. The O&G industry does recognise climate change as an issue and is using CSR as a tool to respond voluntarily and deploy mitigation and adaptation strategies. However, this research indicates that the CSR programmes of O&G companies are not necessarily addressing climate change ‘on the ground’ in developing nations