Our approach to reporting

• Reporting for different audiences
• Reporting on what matters most
• Using Key Performance Indicators to track performance
• Alignment with external guidelines
• Assuring our reporting
• The way forward

Reporting for different audiences

We use our Sustainability Report, supported by this website, to provide the general overview of our environmental and social performance worldwide. For customers, suppliers and staff, our Sustainability Review provides a short summary of this performance. For investors we report on our approach to managing environmental and social risks and opportunities in our Annual Report and 20-F. We also co-operate with the producers of leading indices such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, FTSE4Good and the Carbon Disclosure Project, and other organisations providing information on environmental and social performance to investors. Individual Shell operations may also report on local activities and issues.

Reporting on what matters most

Good environmental and social reporting must focus on the issues that are most important to our stakeholders and to us; that is why we use an established and auditable content selection process. We further refined our process in 2008 to include the feedback we received from our External Review Committee.

Using Key Performance Indicators to track performance

We report on 10 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), developed in consultation with external stakeholders, that measure and track our main environmental and social impacts.

Our current KPIs are:

• Environmental - greenhouse gas emissions, flaring in Exploration & Production, operational spills, energy intensity (x 3) and external perception of environmental performance. Read more about our performance against each environmental KPIs.
• Social - the safety of our staff and contractors (injuries), gender diversity (women in senior leadership positions) and favourability. Read more about our performance against each social KPI.

Alignment with external guidelines

On this website we describe our contribution to the Millennium Development Goals and our efforts to support the UN Global Compact.

We continue to use the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) G3 guidelines for our sustainability reporting. GRI confirmed our A+ level for the 2008 Report.

We also follow the guidelines of the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association and are supporting the GRI’s work on guidance for the oil and gas industry.

Assuring our reporting

We continue to use an External Review Committee of experts to check that our Sustainability Report is balanced, relevant and responsive to stakeholders. The Committee’s wide-ranging challenges and advice are based on their extensive knowledge of the issues and their first-hand experience of working with us. We intend to rotate two members out of the six-person Committee each year, so that we manage our demands on committee members’ time, and balance the need for continuity and fresh perspectives. We did this again in 2008.

Between 1998 and 2004, with the advice of external auditors, we developed a range of internal controls to help assure the accuracy of the facts in our Sustainability Report. These controls include audit trails for all the data and statements included in the Report, approved by senior managers. Senior business leaders must confirm the accuracy and reliability of their HSSE data, and we have statistical checks in place to detect errors. We have also begun working with Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance Limited, an external verifier, to develop further checks on our greenhouse gas emissions data.

The way forward

With stakeholder requirements and cost pressures both continuing to rise, we are intensifying our search for ways to report better and to further streamline and simplify our reporting process.