Sustainability Reporting Guidelines—Safety Issues for Oil Companies

Abstract

There is a growing interest in sustainability reporting and its practices. Worldwide, this interest is especially urgent in hazardous industries where serious accidents have grave economic, social, and ecological impacts. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill triggered discussions of regulation and safety issues in oil companies which highlighted the complexity and risks of operations in the oil industry. Oil companies are called on to be transparent and accountable to the public regarding their corporate social responsibility; they are expected to disclose information regarding oil operations safety, including spill prevention and response plans. Existing sustainability reporting standards suggest a way for presenting sustainability performance information for stakeholders. Research literature focuses on industrial challenges and criticizes the current sustainability reporting initiatives for providing guidance of too generic a character. This article focuses on the question of how sustainability reporting represents oil operation safety issues. The study provides an overview of the current global sustainability reporting guidelines and analyzes how they recommend focusing on safety issues and response plans. The study discusses whether sustainability reporting frameworks are a useful platform for providing information about the oil companies’ safety.

 

Key words: sustainable development, sustainability reporting guidelines, oil and gas companies, production safety