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Reporting against the UN Global Compact: Environment
We are continuously looking for better ways to manage the environmental impacts of our operations, products and services throughout their life. We are investing to lower our emissions and our impacts on biodiversity and use less energy, water and other resources.
Below we detail our performance against the Global Compact principles 7, 8 and 9.
Principle 7: Support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges
Shell supports a precautionary approach to environmental challenges. We take a systematic, company-wide approach to managing environmental risks. Our efforts in managing some of our most important environmental impacts and risks our touched on below:
Climate change
In 1997, Shell was one of the first energy companies to acknowledge the threat of climate change; to call for action by governments, our industry and energy users; and to take action ourselves. These efforts continue and are described in our response to climate change.
Protecting biodiversity
We were the first energy company to adopt a biodiversity standard and to commit not to explore or drill for oil and gas in natural World Heritage sites.
We have developed Biodiversity action plans for all Shell-operated companies in International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - opens in new window Category I-IV Protected Areas and have extended this requirement to operations in areas of high biodiversity value in which we have major installations. We continue working with others to reduce our impact and contribute to conservation.
Visit our Respecting Biodiversity section for details of our approach.
Principle 8: Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility
Shell's commitment to Principle 8 is best illustrated by our pledge to contribute towards sustainable development. This commitment was included in the Shell General Business Principles, first in 1997 and again when revised in 2005:
" We commit to contribute to sustainable development. This requires balancing short and long term interests, integrating economic, environmental and social considerations into business decision-making."
The Group HSE Commitment and Standard issued in March 1997 also states:
" … in this way we aim to have an HSE performance we can be proud of, to earn the confidence of customers, shareholders and society at large, to be a good neighbour and contribute towards sustainable development".
Principle 9: Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies
Innovation and technology are an integral part of our commitment to sustainable development. For example, Shell is involved in innovation to: reduce the CO2 emissions of producing energy; enhance the energy efficiency of our operations; improve the efficiency and performance of our fuels; reduce the risks of spills and emissions to the atmosphere and; improve and reduce costs of alternative technologies like transport biofuels and wind power.
Read more on our Innovation website.
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