RIASSUNTO
Abstract
Conoco's journey towards sustainability began in earnest about 2 years ago as an ""incremental"" effort to bring increased awareness of environmental and community responsibility to existing operations. Since then however, the company has evolved to a much richer understanding of sustainable development and its potential. Sustainable development is now considered a strategic framework for long-term business success with the potential to shape the company's direction and is the foundation for Conoco's vision of achieving sustainable business growth. Committing to financial excellence, environmental stewardship and broad, ongoing contributions to social development earns Conoco its license to operate and allows us to embrace new, value creating opportunities by leveraging our capabilities to bring sustainable solutions to our customers and stakeholders. In short, our commitment to sustainable development is seen as a fundamental prerequisite for Conoco's survival and success in the new century.
Like many companies that have embraced the concept of sustainable development, Conoco is now embarking on the challenge of translating that vision of economic, environmental and social sustainability into the reality of tangible value creation and sustainable growth. Strategic sustainability integration represents a shift in mindset away from traditional regulatory compliance, risk abatement, and cost control into the realm of opportunity identification. The purpose of this paper is to discuss Conoco's experience with strategic sustainability integration in its operations from around the world. Examples will describe community development efforts in Nigeria, the positive environmental impact of a natural gas project in Syria, as well as an integrated approach to extra-heavy oil development the environmentally sensitive Orinoco Oil Belt of Venezuela. These and other efforts represent the beginning of Conoco's journey towards strategic sustainability and total economic, social, and environmental value creation.
Introduction
Sustainable development has become something of ""darling"" concept in the international energy industry over the past decade. In business' Triple Bottom Line interpretation of the 1987 Brundtland Commission definition of sustainable development - development that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs1 - many companies have been drawn to the concept by the siren song of the ""yes and"" proposition. Yes, society can have economic growth AND environmental health AND social progress. Our maturing understanding of the complex interdependency of these three legs of the sustainability platform supports the conclusion that this integration is not only possible but must be achieved to ensure a healthy standard of living now and for future generations.
Like many companies (and communities, NGOs, and governments) that have embraced the concept of sustainable development, Conoco is now embarking on the challenge of translating the vision of economic, environmental and social sustainability into the reality of tangible value creation. Strategic sustainability integration represents a shift in mindset away from traditional reasoning of regulatory compliance and cost control and away from the perception of environmental management and community relations as ""add-on"", cost-center components of project management. Rather the reward for sustainability thinking is the ability to capture the full value creation potential of social and environmental integration through the complete business life-cycle from opportunity identification, through decision-making, to project design and implementation. The purpose of this paper is describe Conoco's emerging and evolving process for strategic sustainability integration and to review some of our early and ongoing sustainability ""experiments"" in Orinoco Oil Belt of Venezuela, the steppes of Syria, and onshore Nigeria.