Oil and Gas Companies and the Management of Social and Environmental Impacts and Issues

This chapter provides an overview of social and environmental performance and management practices in the oil and gas industries, outlining the evolution of international companies’ approaches over the last twenty years within the wider extractive industries context. The chapter reviews what social and environmental management amongst such companies means in practice, and highlights some of the unresolved issues emerging. While most companies now model their approach to social and environmental management on international norms, they face a variety of drivers to their practices. These range from complying with international standards in order to gain access to finance, to complying with new host country legislation and regulation, and gaining and maintaining a good reputation and a ‘social licence to operate’. This chapter argues that the complexity of these drivers problematizes the portrayal of the industry’s social and environmental performance as ‘voluntary’ corporate social responsibility, and renders the latter term somewhat misleading.