A Paradigm Shift from Effective Environment Management to Sustainability Reporting Initiatives:
Building Corporate Capacity to adopt appropriate
Environmental Friendly Green Technologies, resulting in improving
Safety, Health and Environmental ( SHE ) Performances and dealing with
Global Climate Change in context of
GHG Emissions, while improving trust and communications with the stakeholders on implementation of
Effective Environment Management Systems in Petroleum Exploration and Production Cycle, are the most significant
Sustainable Developmental Issues that the Hydrocarbon Industry world over, is facing over the recent years. Under the emerging trends on
Environmental Regulations, in terms of
Sustainable Development, an oil and gas project must be compatible with community’s way of life, increasingly E & P Business successes are now linked to strong performances in both the
Environmental and community Affairs.
The broad challenge to the oil and gas industry is to balance the goals of sustainable development, i.e. social progress that recognizes the needs of everyone, effective protection of the environment, prudent use of natural resources, and maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and energy economics. The paper emphatically attempts to explore the industry achievements over past five years on reduction in
Environmental Impact, Emissions and Discharges through Technological Applications, implementation of
Social Responsibility Programs, and
Safety, Health and Environment Management Systems, including Risks Assessment by operators and contractors, in terms of variables governing
Heterogeneous Hydrocarbon Global Reserves,
Environmental and Geo-political Constraints, its Consumption and Demand, Availability and Production, Infra-Structure and Emerging Technologies, in an Integrated Long-Term Energy Policy under the Frame-Work of New World Energy Order, UN Conventions on Climate Change and Energy and Biodiversity Initiatives for Hydrocarbon Industry. The unifying theme of analyzing the critical SHE issusses and challenges for the industry, is to predict a future sustainable carbon – energy production peak on economic, social and environmental issues and imbalances.An interesting prediction of the derived analysis is that the exponential growth function of oil resource available or produced has been established to be true in the early stages of petroleum production cycle without any consideration of
Environmental economics for incurred Environmental Damages, and it is found consistent with exponential increase in exploration cost, resulting in marginal cost increase, justifying more expensive E & P technologies, while taking into the account of
Environmental Costs on a more Sustainable Petroleum Exploration and Production Cycle. Conclusively, the most important issues for the next five years in the industry will be to continue capacity building for improved clean technology applications to improve SHE performances, and to measure and report the results under Social Responsibility Programs, that will ultimately, predict future sustainable growth & peak oil production, when economy on social and environmental adaptability alone will determine it ultimately, rather than resource availability, at some distant point of time. Industry is now encouraged by an increasing acceptance of the need to explore new approaches to environmental management. As such, Industry will be an active partner with government in joint goal and standard setting exercises and is strongly motivated to seek out and apply creative and cost effective clean
Development mechanisms, to meeting new sustainable energy production underenvironment promoting challenges.
Author: Dr. Jagdish P. N. Giri
Founder and Executive Director, Aaditya Energy Foundation, Chennai, India,
www.aadityaenergyfoundation.org
E-mail:jpngiri@aadityaenergyfoundation.com
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