The Reporting Task Force was established in 2002. Its purpose is to encourage voluntary sustainability reporting across the oil and gas industry and to help companies improve quality and consistency of reports.

The issue

The oil and gas industry recognizes the important role it plays around the globe and the need to be responsive to interested audiences and company stakeholders. Citizens globally have a natural desire to understand the industry and to participate in open dialogue concerning the inherent risks and benefits of oil and gas operations. One result of this is growing interest for sustainability, or non-financial reporting. Reporting is an important approach, for developing constructive stakeholder dialogue and thereby fostering a better understanding of stakeholders’ concerns.

Sustainability reporting is part of an evolving process that has its roots in corporate environmental reporting. Over time, environmental reporting has expanded to include health and safety issues. More recently, many companies in the oil and gas industry have extended their reporting to include social and economic issues. This reporting, using a range of non-financial indicators, has become an increasingly important means for communicating and measuring company performance and progress to key stakeholders including the investment community, partners, local communities and employees.

IPIECA activities

In 2002, IPIECA teamed up with the American Petroleum Institute (API) to sponsor the development of the Compendium of sustainability reporting practices and trends for the oil and gas industry. This served to better understand and communicate the industry’s sustainability performance measurement and reporting practices, based on a survey of the industry’s existing reporting activities. The resulting document characterized the state of sustainability reporting among numerous oil and gas companies.

This initiative led to the publication of the Oil and gas industry guidance on voluntary sustainability reporting released in April 2005. This industry-endorsed framework for sustainability reporting serves as a reference guide to assist oil and gas companies interested in voluntary reporting of their environmental, health and safety, social and economic performance.

In 2008 a new Reporting Task Force convened to update the 2005 report. The task force is sponsored by IPIECA together with API and the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP), and has strong representation from companies within the industry.The task force had two main objectives: to obtain stakeholder feedback to improve the guidance; and to improve the oil and gas reporting through the development of more precise indicators.

As part of this update process, IPIECA brought together a panel of external stakeholders to consult on the updated direction, scope and process. The expert panel members are as follows:

• Tom Delfgaauw, Independent
• Roger Hammond, Living Earth
• Elizabeth McGeveran/Karina Litvack, F&C Asset Management
• Janet Ranganathan, World Resources Institute
• Motoko Aizawa/Louise Gardiner, International Finance Corporation

The first stakeholder panel session was held in May 2009 and a subsequent session, focusing on a review of the draft revised guidance, was held a year later. The second edition of the guidance, which incorporates suggested changes and comments received from the stakeholder panel, has also been available for public comment on IPIECA’s website. The revised guidance is expected to be released in October 2010.

Member action

Member sustainability reports are available from Corporate Register:

• BG Group plc
• BP plc
• Chevron Corporation
• CNOOC Ltd
• ConocoPhillips
• Eni SpA
• Exxon Mobil Corporation
• Hess Corporation
• Maersk Oile og Gas AS
• Marathon Oil Company
• Nexen Inc
  
• Occidental Petroleum Corporation
• OMV AG
• Petrobras SA
• PETRONAS
• PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited
• Repsol YPF SA
• Royal Dutch Shell plc
• Statoil ASA
• Total SA
• Woodside Petroleum Ltd

The Global Reporting Initiative
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a network-based organization that has pioneered the development of the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework, the G3. GRI’s work informed the first edition of the IPIECA Reporting Guidance and continues to be an important reference source as we develop the second edition.

GRI is currently working to develop an Oil and Gas Sector Supplement to G3, which is expected to reach completion in 2011. While the IPIECA and GRI processes will produce separate outcomes, IPIECA and GRI and their members in common (BP, Eni, Hess, Shell, Statoil and Petrobras) are working towards alignment wherever possible in order to best serve the oil and gas reporting community’s needs. GRI has made its draft indicators and protocols available for public comment from March - May 2010.