BP 2012 Annual Report Download - page 53

Business review: BP in more depth
Business review: BP in more depth
BP Annual Report and Form 20-F 2012
51
Environmental and social
responsibility
We strive to minimize our impact on the
environment and communities, to respect human
rights and to conserve cultural heritage.
t Our operating management system (OMS) lays out the standards
and processes required for environmentally and socially responsible
operations.
t Our operations are expected to work to continually reduce their
impacts and risks. All our major operating sites, with the exception of
recently acquired operations, are required to be certified to the
environmental management system standard ISO 14001.
t We seek to manage operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
through our OMS, which requires businesses to incorporate energy
use considerations in their business plans and to assess, prioritize
and implement technologies and systems to improve energy usage.
2011 direct GHG
Acquisitions
Divestments
Methodology
changes
Operational
changes
Real sustainable
reductions
2012 direct GHG
Greenhouse gas emissions
(Mte CO2 equivalent)
57.5
58.5
59.5
60.5
61.5
62.5
63.5
61.8
+0.8 –1.5
–0.7
59.8
–0.4
–0.2
Managing our environmental and social risks and
impacts
At a group level, we review our management of material issues such as
GHG emissions, water, sensitive and protected areas and human rights
annually. We seek to identify emerging risks and assess methods to
reduce them across the company.
Our OMS helps our operations around the world to assess and manage
their environmental and social impacts. This includes conducting an
annual OMS assessment to identify risks and impacts, and then putting in
place action plans to manage them.
The principles and standards of OMS are supported by our environmental
and social practices. These set out how our major projects identify and
manage environmental and social impacts. They also apply to projects that
involve new access, projects that could affect an international protected
area and some BP acquisition negotiations.
In the early planning stages, these projects complete a screening process.
Results are used to identify the most significant environmental and social
impacts associated with the project, with a requirement to identify
mitigation measures and implement these in project design, construction
and operations. From April 2010 to the end of 2012, 88 projects had
completed the screening process, and used outputs of the process to
implement measures to reduce impact.
During screening, we identify any international protected areas that could
be affected by the project, using the UNEP World Conservation
Monitoring Centre’s World Database on Protected Areas. Our international
protected areas classification includes areas designated as protected by
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (categories I-IV),
Ramsar and World Heritage sites, as well as areas proposed for
international protected status.
Where screening indicates that a proposed BP project could affect an
international protected area a high-level risk assessment is carried out,
including identification of potential avoidance and mitigation measures.
Our safety and operational risk function provides an independent review
of the risk assessment, and before any physical activity begins,
permission is sought from senior management. In 2012 no new projects
sought permission for entry into an international protected area.
Our operations are expected to work to continually reduce their impacts
and risks. All our major operating sites, with the exception of recently
acquired operations, are required to be certified to the environmental
management system standard ISO 14001, and publish an externally
verified environmental statement. In 2012 our Gelsenkirchen refinery in
Germany was not recertified due to conflicts in scheduling a verification
audit. They completed a verification audit in late 2012 and were recertified
in January 2013.
More information about our approach to environmental and social
issues can be found in BP Sustainability Review 2012 and at
bp.com/sustainability.
Oil spill preparedness and response
We have used lessons from our Deepwater Horizon oil spill response to
further enhance our internal approaches to preparedness and response
planning. In July 2012 new group requirements for oil spill preparedness
and response planning, and for crisis management were issued, with
timeframes established for required conformance by the businesses. To
facilitate understanding of these new requirements, workshops have been
conducted with more than 600 staff from 45 countries, ranging from
senior leaders to on-site oil spill response teams.
Understanding and mitigating the risks
Identifying and assessing the potential oil spill risks and potential impacts
helps us to develop appropriate oil spill response and crisis management
plans. These plans are backed up by the tools and people required to
mount an effective response to an incident and mitigate potential impacts.
We further developed our oil spill modelling systems and capabilities in
2012. Improving existing modelling tools, conducting staff training in our
regions and enhancing the environmental and socio-economic data
required in the models have all helped to better define different oil spill
scenarios and to plan for responding to them. Modelling for two
deepwater drilling operations, Salamat and North Uist, indicated that
international protected areas could potentially be affected from the worst
case oil spill scenario. As a result, additional mitigations were put in place
to try to reduce this risk.
Understanding the environmental and socio-economic sensitivities can
help inform response planning. Across our operating regions, we are
developing enhanced, high resolution sensitivity maps aided by the use of
technologies such as remote sensing satellites. In 2012 we used high
resolution satellite imagery to enhance sensitivity maps of coastlines in
Brazil and Africa.
The use of oil spill dispersants as a response tool for major oil spills in the
deep-sea environment continued to be a focus area in 2012. We continue
to gain a greater understanding of dispersants and their use through
scientific research programmes, conducted individually: for example,
characterizing the ‘oil-degrading bacterial communities’ in our operating
regions and collectively, through joint industry programmes such as
IPIECA-OGP and the API.
Collaboration on lessons learned
We seek to work collaboratively with government regulators in planning
for oil spill response, sharing lessons learned and our technical
approaches, with the aim of improving any potential future response. In
the past two years we conducted workshops on issues such as
dispersant use and in-situ burn response to regulators in Australia, Brazil,
China, Egypt, Indonesia, Norway and the UK.
We are advancing our capability to respond to potential incidents and are
working with our industry to further enhance access to equipment and
technologies around the world. BP’s global deepwater well capping and
tooling package is stored in Houston and can be deployed in a matter of
days to anywhere in the world in the event of a deepwater well blowout.