Indicators for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Abstract In 1996 Statoil, Amoco, BP, Conoco and Shell wished to benchmark how companies in the oil business deal with the issues of the environment and sustainable development. The initial conclusion was that a methodology or process had to be developed first. It was decided that the principle focus of the process should be the management systems that each company had in place and the sharing of best practice. A four year journey of discovery began. The process included the following elements:an agreement on assessing sustainable development through a process of mutual learningan agreement based on trust and openness to enable learningdefinition of relevant sustainable development indicators along the value chaina description of an implementation chain for management processesmeasuring management processescomparing and discussing results of measurementusing case studies to modify and/or verify indicator definitions used in the process. GRI, Gothenburg Research Institute acted as facilitator and was primarily responsible for the format and organisation of the many project meetings. In 1997 the process that included what we called "Environmental Management Indicators" (EMI) for the oil industry was concluded. A final report was prepared, discussed and agreed upon. However, this final report became the first phase in applying the same process to consider the sustainable development issue. This second phase was more difficult and ambiguous, compared with the environmental management indicator exercise. No ready-made standards are available with regard to the definition and measurement of Corporate Social Responsibility. Although there is some more or less theoretical literature at hand, this literature is of relatively little use when it comes to definitions and measurement of management systems that deal with sustainability issues on a company level, specifically in the oil industry. Much effort went into defining indicators, measurements and profiles for single indicators and the management systems that control sustainable development issues in the companies. The exercise resulted in a methodology and a set of indicators for assessing a company's management of sustainable development, which probably is in the forefront of the development in this area. The process has been extremely interesting and proved valuable but there is still room for improvement. The benefits of this methodology have included:learning from the sharing of best practiceproviding a framework for discussions with othersassessing where a company's strengths and gaps are The methodology Sustainable development requires the integration and balancing of activities with respect to each of the three "pillars", economics, environmental and social. The indicators produced in this project concern management's adaptation of sustainable development, that means the management processes that are implemented in order to achieve companies' policies related to sustainability.