OEEC 2018: Is Your Company Corporately Responsible?

The final day of the OEEC 2018 in Amsterdam has seen another action-packed program.

The Global Oil Event was followed by technical sessions on Late Life Ops and Corporate Responsibility.

Christiaan Luca, Associate Partner, Community Wisdom Partners, started the session on Corporate Responsibility with the intro of the speakers and their topics.

Across the globe and across industries, companies increasingly face public scrutiny of their business activities.

This session engaged delegates in a discussion on corporate responsibility in the extractive and renewable energy industry and why it makes business sense to put corporate responsibility at the heart of your company strategy.

Examples were shown how companies, such as Total and Van Oord take responsibility for their impact on the environment they operate in, on their stakeholders and on their own employees and the results of this strategy.

Jean-Marc Fontaine – Vice-President Operations & Expertises at the Civil Society Engagement Direction of Total presented the company’s initiative – Total Foundation, which has a special focus on youth with its Youth Inclusion and Education priority.

“We pledge to go beyond our business operations by developing solidarity initiatives through the Total Foundation worldwide program based on four priority areas and oriented towards young people.”

The seventeen United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) represent in fact the drivers and impact of business.

Sander Dekker, manager Sustainability at Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors, picked out 7 of the UN’s SDGs and presented how Van Oord implements them into the company’s strategy.

With the fast-changing society and the role of the social media, the company’s social license to operate has become increasingly important for the bottom line.

Further discussions were delivered  on how companies cannot get away anymore with just informing the people and paying compensation for damages made. Nowadays, companies are expected to become partners in development on a continuous and structural basis. The classic stakeholder model whereby companies identify which stakeholder has most influence and most impact on the company is not fit to deal with this increasingly complex society.

The event continues with Marine Energy Event and Decommissioning Session, which will wrap up the Conference part.