GENEVA, 20 April 2021: IPIECA, the global oil and gas industry association for advancing environmental and social performance, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), have today launched Accelerating action: An SDG Roadmap for the oil and gas sector (Roadmap). This new initiative identifies how IPIECA, as a global oil and gas industry association, and oil and gas companies working within the sector, can work towards a low-emissions future while contributing to a healthier and more prosperous world aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Roadmap was developed in response to the critical need for concerted action and coordinated solutions as the world approaches the 2030 deadline to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic reversing SDG progress in many areas.
The Roadmap outlines over 90 actions - mapped against SDG targets – which go beyond business as usual and aim to catalyze the realization of the SDGs.
IPIECA Executive Director Brian Sullivan said, "Achieving the SDGs by 2030 will require unprecedented collaboration. The Roadmap aligns the oil and gas industry around the SDGs, presenting a shared vision for transformational action and a platform to form cross-sector partnerships and alliances to achieve the SDGs."
WBCSD President and CEO Peter Bakker said, "Realizing the SDGs requires widespread action across sectors. This important Roadmap aims to establish a standard for global best practice with regard to how the oil and gas sector and its value chain can drive the transformations that are urgently needed to realize the ambitions of the SDG agenda on the road to 2030.”
The Roadmap identifies 10 SDGs on which the industry can have the biggest impact by driving innovations in its own operations and across the supply chain. These 10 SDGs underpin eight impact pathways grouped into three interconnected systemic themes of climate, nature and people.
The Roadmap impact pathways are made up of over 90 short, medium and long-term actions for IPIECA and oil and gas companies which involve scaling up good practices on climate action, environmental responsibility and social performance.
The oil and gas sector has a critical role to play in helping to realize the SDGs, and a world in which 9+ billion people are able to live well, within planetary boundaries by mid-century, as laid out in WBCSD’s Vision 2050. Achieving a world in which all individuals and communities have access to the reliable and affordable energy they need to live well, while simultaneously ensuring that global greenhouse gas emissions from the energy system are consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, will call for an unprecedented transformation of the sector over the course of the next decade.
This SDG Roadmap for the oil & gas sector provides a vision, direction, and platform for collaboration to inspire and guide the sector through the critical transitions that lie ahead.
The Roadmap leverages WBCSD’s SDG Sector Roadmap framework, which was launched in 2018 and has supported a wide range of industries to explore, articulate and realize their collective potential to advance the ambitions of the SDGs.
More information
- WBCSD’s SDG Sector Roadmap Guidelines detail a step-by-step methodology for how companies within a given industry can come together and explore their collective potential to advance the SDG agenda.
- The energy pathway of WBCSD’s Vision 2050 provides more details on how business can power a net-zero world.
- For more resources and for the latest insights on business and the SDGs, contact the WBCSD team or visit the SDG Business Hub
