Energy companies and the environment can coexist

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Sept, 1998 by E.J.P. Browne

A four-pronged approach to the climate change and biodiversity issues demonstrates how these challenges can be met.

Oil companies usually are not associated with the causes of conservation and environmental quality. Our industry still is thought of in terms of dirt, damage, and destruction. We're regarded in the terms of the image of John Wayne clambering through the mud of Spindletop that viewers used to see in the movies. We're not very good at explaining that this isn't the reality of the 1990s.

Oil and gas now are produced by scientific processes. Well sites are dominated not by raw physical strength and noise, but by the quiet purr of some of the most modern technology in the world. The people we employ aren't cowboys or roughnecks, they are scientists and technicians. We employ more scientists than any other industry in the U.S. with the sole exception of the computer field. We are not very good at explaining that, nor are we very good at explaining the standards we aim at achieving.

Wherever we work, we try to protect the local environment--to conserve the plant and animal life, as well as restore what we disturb and respect every element of the area's natural life. We work in sites from the Arctic tundra of Alaska to Poole Bay on the southern coast of England, which is an area of designated environmental importance. They are beautiful places when we arrive, and we are determined that they should remain so and continue to be home to a rich diversity of human, plant, and animal life.

That is a big assertion, and I know there are some people who think it is just a clever public relations ploy a lick of green paint. That isn't so, and the new reality of the oil industry is apparent from Poole Bay in Alaska to Wytch Farm in England to the deep water of the Eastern Atlantic. The subject of human-dominated ecosystems--particularly the issue of biodiversity is of great interest to us. and we have people around the world who are dealing with that in each of the areas where we operate.

In 1997. I gave speeches in Stanford, Calif., and Berlin that addressed the subject of global climate change. I set out the view that, although the science remains provisional, the possibility of a human influence on the climate is too significant to ignore. Total energy demand is expanding, perhaps by as much as 30% by 2010, according to the International Energy Agency. A large proportion of that growth will come from oil and gas because, for the moment, there is no practical alternative. Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising, as is the temperature of the Earth's surface. We can't ignore the mounting evidence. There appears to be a problem and we have to take precautionary action.

The consensus around that view is growing. When I first spoke on this subject in May, 1997, some people thought that the British Petroleum Co. (BP) was taking a maverick view, breaking ranks with our colleagues in the oil industry. "Leaving the church," one commentator called it. Well, since I spoke, I have been struck by the openness of the debate among senior people in the industry and in particular by the strong support for precautionary action expressed by leaders such as Peter Bijur and Cor Herkstroter, the heads of Texaco and Shell, respectively. The international community and governments have been moving, too. We saw that at the environmental summit in Kyoto, Japan.

Some, of course, were disappointed with the outcome of Kyoto. They would have liked to have seen a single, conclusive silver bullet. However, this drastically underestimates the scale, complexity, and political ramifications of the global climate change challenge. It is comparable in scale to say, free trade or nuclear disarmament. Looking at it from this perspective, the fact that agreement to reduce fossil fuel emissions was reached at all at Kyoto is an impressive step forward. After all. before the conference, many were predicting collapse and failure. They were mistaken. The step forward was made. Still, the agreement is complex and there is much to be resolved.

Nevertheless. I think it is fair to say that the question has moved from "whether" to "how." The world has moved, as the psychologists say, beyond denial, and that includes much of the oil industry. The lesson is that companies ultimately are social beings. They operate in society and depend on it for their existence and prosperity. Therefore, they must listen to and understand the concerns of society.

The reality is that the mythical multinational organization, moving around the world without allegiances or obligations, would not be much of a commercial success. It have broken the most basic of all the rules of business by failing to listen to its customers. It also would face a practical problem. It sometimes is forgotten that companies like BP are in the business of building projects which take many years--often decades for the investment to be repaid. A company that invests several billion dollars in this way without understanding the concerns of the society in which it is investing is asking for trouble.