IPIECA Oil and Gas Industry Guidance on Voluntary Sustainability Reporting

The International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) is a global oil and gas industry association working for environmental and social issues, and its membership covers over half of the world’s oil production.18

The IPIECA Petroleum industry guidance for voluntary sustainability reporting [2003; 2010], published together with the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP), is a voluntary guidance document aimed to serve as a resource for interested companies. The guide frames a petroleum industry ‘consensus’ on the most prevalent sustainability issues when evaluating performance across the sector. Issues are framed using indicators for environmental, health and social performance. Five (5) general principles guide IPIECA sustainability reporting:19

1) relevance; 2) transparency; 3) consistency; 4) completeness; 5) accuracy.

The IPIECA Sustainability Guide also a step-by-step account of how to operationalize sustainability reporting—describing what to report, specifically what indicators are to be employed in data collection.20