Sustainability

Panel Dissects Industry Efforts To Measure Sustainability

Recently, SPE presented the latest in its series of live panel discussions on LinkedIn, addressing sustainability in the oil and gas industry using the theme of “Measuring What Matters.”

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Notwithstanding current global socioeconomic conditions, oil and gas is being held to account on its environmental, social, and governance performance against a backdrop of climate change and of biodiversity depletion.

On 26 May, SPE presented the latest in its series of live panel discussions on LinkedIn, addressing sustainability in the oil and gas industry using the lens of “Measuring what Matters.”

Moderated by Tatiana Mitrova, director of the Skolkovo Energy Center at the Moscow School of Management, and hosted by Johana Dunlop, SPE’s technical director for HSE and sustainability, the panel consisted of Pavan Sukhdev, chief executive of GIST Advisory, Antoine Halff, cofounder and chief analyst at Kayrros, Poppy Kalesi, global energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, and Vanessa Miler-Fels, director of energy innovation and impact at Microsoft.

Current sustainability measurement efforts by the industry are conducted to satisfy external stakeholders, and, even then, they sometimes are conducted imperfectly to the detriment of the public, policymakers, investors, and the industry itself. The panel discussed how better to serve these communities as well as the internal stakeholders—the business decision-makers in business administration, operations, research and development, and commercial roles—so that they and their businesses can better enable sustainable development.

“You probably remember management guru Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Drucker meant that you can’t know whether or not you’re successful unless success is defined and tracked,” Mitrova said. “This is 100% applicable to the oil and gas industry. We have enormous amounts of data. We love data, and we know how to work with it. But what we do not know is which exact metrics should we track to measure sustainability of our performance.”

Watch the full discussion below.