It’s here. The third and final post of the series: The Executive’s Guide to ESG. If you haven’t read the first two posts – environmental and social – go do so.
The Executive’s Guide to ESG: Governance
Governance asks us to ensure the highest level of business ethics. Corporate governance covers the area of investigation into the rights and responsibilities of the management of a company.
At XRI, this means we are committed to a corporate culture and code of conduct ensuring the highest level of business ethics, including behavior, anti-bribery and corruption standards, stakeholder rights and social just practices, as well as governance of sustainability initiatives.
We’re also helping to advance ESG initiatives by being a proactive member of industry, governmental and regulatory associations, such as:
- DOE/EPA – Produced Water Task Force
- Texas Oil & Gas Association (TXOGA)
- New Mexico Oil & Gas Association (NMOGA)
- Texas Alliance of Energy Producers
- Energy ESG Council
- New Mexico Produced Water Consortium
Report Cards are Coming
ESG issues are important to both businesses and investors. While a mandated and standardized reporting framework is coming for the United States, individual industries are taking steps to develop their own in the interim. (The American Petroleum Institute (API) recently released the oil and gas reporting template for greenhouse gases (GHG).)
ESG and Business Objectives
As with any other program that is measured for a company’s success, ESG should be incorporated into the overall business objectives. ESG is not a corporate story to spin; it’s measurable, which means it offers analytical and actionable data.
For example, when it comes to safety, the ultimate goal is for all employees to go home in the same shape that they arrived. In industry terms, we use the measurement of Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR). Every company wants to announce they have a 0.00 TRIR.
At XRI, we’ve been leading water midstream in ESG initiatives. We’re doing so in an environmentally friendly way and by staying on top of regulations on the operators’ side. More importantly, we’re leading this charge because our ESG initiatives have always been built into our business objectives. And as part of those objectives, we’ll continue to move the oil and gas industry off fresh water by doing two things:
- Setting the standard for the industry in terms of resource conservation, safety, and stewardship to the communities in which we work, live, and serve.
- Bridging the gap between operators by leveraging infrastructure, resulting in efficiencies that resulted in the accelerated growth of recycled and reused produced water.