Company Profile – Chevron
Back to Company Profiles Home
As the second largest oil producer in America, Chevron has an extremely large carbon footprint and is a major contributor to global warming. They have the obvious handicap of producing the fuels that are most responsible for global warming so they can be consumed by the rest of us, but are starting to put more thought and effort into reducing their carbon footprint.
In 2007, Chevron was responsible for a massive 60 million metric tons of carbon emissions, although this figure came in slightly better than their target. In 2008, they are aiming to keep their carbon footprint to 62.5 million metric tens of carbon equivalents. However, they are linked to far more than what comes out of their own operations. Their product – oil – is one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. In 2007, their products, once sold on to customers, resulted in a staggering 404 million metric tons of carbon emissions. Chevron has hired a third party organization to validate their figures, who found that all their carbon reporting was accurate.
In 2001, Chevron started their Action Plan on Climate Change to define their environmental strategy. This group came up with the following seven Principles for Addressing Climate Change on which the company’s green strategy is based:
- Global Engagement
- Energy Security
- Maximize Conservation
- Measured and Flexible Approach
- Broad, Equitable Treatment
- Enable Technology
- Transparency
A few of these require further discussion. On the positive side, the final point – 'Transparency' – is one that the company takes very seriously as they have been recognized for their openness and accuracy of the carbon reporting. However, both 'Global Engagement' and 'Broad, Equitable Treatment' discuss sharing the burdens of global warming across all countries and all industries. There is certainly some virtue in this, but coming from a major oil company it seems like a way to get others solve the problem that Chevron has been instrumental in creating.
In their own operations, Chevron has focused largely on energy efficiency to reduce their carbon footprint. Since they started tracking energy efficiency in 1992, the company has improved energy use per unit of output by 27%. This is a big improvement, although one based on a ‘per sales’ method, not a total use of energy and thus allows Chevron to meet their targets and still increase their use of fossil fuels. The company also has extensive cogeneration facilities to improve their carbon footprint.
The other area that Chevron aims to reduce their carbon footprint is from a reduction in flaring and the carbon emissions it generates. While an unavoidable part of oil production, flaring can be better managed to reduce its environmental impact.
Chevron, like most other major companies, has taken some preliminary steps in expanding their portfolio to include renewable energy. They have taken on projects in several energy sources including solar power, and they are the largest producer of geothermal energy in the world, though this remains a small part of overall energy production.
Chevron is a leader in carbon capture and storage technology and has one of the biggest projects commencing in Australia that is expected to keep 120 million metric tons of carbon emissions out of the atmosphere over the life of the project.
More broadly, to fight climate change, Chevron has been public in their stance that the best options are energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and low carbon fuels like biofuels. They have also said that the Kyoto Protocol asks for too aggressive emissions cuts too quickly – not the most optimistic or ambitious position!
So how do they stack up?
Business Strategy: 1.5/5 – Chevron is clearly based around fossil fuels, but they have taken some basic steps to fight global warming
Products & Services: 1.5/5 – the obvious handicap that their main product is oil, but are looking at alternate energy sources that will hopefully make up a bigger portion of their portfolio as the technology develops
Leading by Example: 3/5 – not bad considering they are one of the biggest oil producers in the world
Overall: 2/5
|
Share This Story: |
