Respect for People & the Environment

Shell in Australia follows our global business principles which call for acting with respect for people and behaving responsibly towards the environment.

Compliance with all applicable laws and regulations is a minimum requirement but, as a socially responsible business, Shell's aim is to continue to improve even more.

Care for the environment

Respect for people

Protecting Barrow Island's Flora and Fauna

Let's Read

Care for the environment is crucial in all our planning and decision making, whether we are seeking future sources of energy in environmentally sensitive areas or caring for the interests of the communities in which our refineries and terminals are situated.

Our environmental performance reflects our work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other noxious air emissions caused during the manufacturing process as well as producing lower sulphur and benzene fuels. We have been publicly reporting our greenhouse gas emissions via the Federal Government's voluntary Greenhouse Challenge Plus programme since 1995. Our production of low benzene fuel and low sulphur diesel at our refineries two years ahead of mandatory government deadlines are described earlier in this publication (see Technology and Innovation, page 14).

Efficient use of energy and resources minimise greenhouse gas emissions and bring significant benefits to the business. Our refineries at Geelong and Clyde have had a focus on energy efficiency for many years and have undertaken detailed energy analysis since the 1980s. We review results and consider ways of lowering our use of energy, and therefore our production of greenhouse gas emissions. Both refineries regularly update environmental improvement plans (EIPs) that are developed by our staff in consultation with community representatives and environmental authorities.

When the Geelong Refinery produced its new EIP for 2007-2009, it worked with its community advisory panel to ensure concerns were addressed. The refinery sought community views for a four-week period before finalising the EIP. Councillor Lou Brazier, Chairman of Shell's Community Advisory Panel in Geelong commented that Shell had demonstrated its commitment to being a responsible steward of the environment through the adoption of the EIP.

Refining fuel requires a large amount of water, mainly for cooling and to produce the steam required for processing at our refineries. We are actively looking for new ways of saving and recycling water. For example, at our Clyde refinery we are in the final stages of discussion with Sydney Water around the feasibility of migrating current fresh water consumption to recycled water by 2011. During 2008 we will be commissioning an $80 million upgrade to our fluidised catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at Clyde which aims to reduce steam consumption and, consequently, reduce water consumption. At Geelong more than a third of the fresh water used to generate steam in our boilers is recovered and reused. Along with other water saving initiatives this has cut the refinery's fresh water consumption by 300,000 litres per day. Our terminal at Newport has reduced the amount of water used for fire tests by an average of 30,000 litres each week.

Minimising and recycling waste is a high priority at our refineries. One of our initiatives in Geelong in 2005 was to pioneer Geo-tube(r), a giant 35-metre long bag that separates oil from water. This is a great sustainability project as it cuts waste to landfill (saving $1 million a year in fees) and allows us to recycle the waste in our composting park.

While oil spills have occurred in the past as a result of historic operational practices, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of spills. This has come about through improvements to our operating practices, investment in and maintenance of equipment, and working with regulatory bodies and the community. Ensuring our staff respond promptly and efficiently when a spill does occur is also a crucial element to managing this industry-wide challenge.

Our respect for people manifests itself in a variety of ways that involve our own staff and the wider community.

Foremost is the issue of health and safety. Shell's vision of "No Harm to People" reinforces health and safety as core values of our organisation. In support of the vision, great emphasis is placed upon encouraging a safety culture in the workplace, by setting clear expectations, improving safety training and encouraging people at all levels to be "leaders in safety". In recent years, we have supplemented engineering driven safety procedures with behavioural safety programmes. This involves staff in the development of plans and actions to further improve safety. Safety incidents are systematically reported and measured.  We work with our joint venture partners and other industry participants on common health, safety, security and environment issues and processes across our businesses.

Shell promotes equality of opportunity and work/life balance.  We encourage our staff to be sensitive to gender and cultural differences, and to understand what constitutes bullying and harassment. Our Human Resources team works with management to promote learning and development, and conduct educational programmes designed to improve the quality of our leadership.

Our Workplace Giving programme is helping to develop a culture of giving throughout the organisation. Shell Australia employees have the opportunity to donate to one of 21 nominated charities under Shell's Workplace Giving Programme.  Donations are made from pre-tax salary and are matched dollar for dollar by Shell.

Our social investment programme consists of targeted investments that assist community organisations to achieve their goals. Concern for health, education and the environment are the cornerstones of our social investment activities. We actively contribute to community activities such as those we undertake nationally with Conservation Volunteers Australia. Locally, projects such as Reconnections with Greening Australia WA help to deliver innovative solutions to challenges facing the environment and community.

We aim to be good neighbours in the communities where we operate. We exchange views with our neighbours through formal community advisory and consultative groups and, less formally, by joining in with our neighbours at local community events.

Conservation best practices at Barrow Island's oilfield operation have been protecting the island's flora and fauna for over 40 years. With the development of a liquefaction plant on the island to process the natural gas piped from the Gorgon and Jansz fields, the Gorgon joint venture will be working with an independent expert advisory panel to ensure that the island's key flora and fauna species, including turtles, are protected. To reduce the amount of visible light emitted by the plant, there will be no high stack flares as seen at most similar plants. Instead, the surplus hydrocarbons will be burnt in sunk ground flares.

Shell supports the exciting initiative Let's Read, designed to promote reading with pre-school children. Let's Read was developed by the Centre for Community Child Health, a key research centre of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, in partnership with The Smith Family. It has been designed to support and empower parents and carers to read with their child, and develop the building blocks that are needed for children to develop vocabulary and speech. It also supports children in gaining the skills that will enable them to learn to read when they start school. Launched in 2005, Let's Read has already reached 65,000 children in over 40 communities around Australia.