Employees at Fort McMurray

External engagement is important to understanding the issues and challenges relating to climate and the evolution of policy development. Current actions include: 

  • Taking part in global legislation and regulation development. 
  • Engaging with stakeholders, including investors, on climate-related risks. 
  • Working within industry groups to advance sector-wide net-zero solutions. 

Supporting Industry Dialogue

We actively work with different organizations and associations around the world to enhance our understanding of the issues and trends facing our industry and company. The benefits we receive from trade and industry associations range from best practice sharing to technical standard setting and issue advocacy. We do not always agree with all positions taken by the organizations that we work with. For example, we may not always be fully aligned with the positions they take on climate change or regulatory reform. In these cases, we make our views known and seek to influence their policy positions. We have strong governance around our association activities and annually report on trade association memberships with dues more than $50,000. 

We are members or sponsors of external groups that support our efforts to manage climate-related risks.

Ipieca established its Climate Change Working Group in 1988. Since then, the group has monitored climate science and policy discussions, engaging with international governmental bodies and other stakeholders. It is not an advocacy body and does not engage in lobbying on climate or other issues.

In 2021, Ipieca clarified its purpose on providing best practice guidance on GHG emissions monitoring, reporting and management to improve industry performance. ConocoPhillips is aligned with Ipieca in its efforts to bring together members of industry to knowledge share on GHG reduction efforts. 

Ipieca participates in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and provides Ipieca members with reliable and timely information about these and other international processes dealing with climate change. 

We are sponsors of the MIT — Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change program which supports efforts to:

  • Improve knowledge of interactions among human and natural Earth systems, with a focus on climate and energy, and of the forces that drive global change. 
  • Prepare quantitative analyses of global change risk and its social and environmental consequences. 
  • Provide independent assessments of potential responses to global risks, through emissions mitigation and anticipatory adaptation, contributing to improved understanding of these issues among other analysis groups, policymaking communities and the public. 
  • Augment the pool of people needed for work in this area by the education of graduate and undergraduate students in relevant disciplines of economic and Earth science analysis and methods of policy assessment. 

IHS Markit, now part of S&P global, hosts forums where member companies can discuss global climate change and clean energy research and its implications for policy. They provide a wide range of research products to ensure that members are up to date with current developments around the world. 

Additionally, we have worked with the following groups: 

Our engagement with investors has focused on climate-related risks in many one-on-one meetings and periodic conferences, such as with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. We have also engaged on climate-related issues and sustainability risks with institutions such as JP Morgan, Citi, Moody’s, Fitch and S&P. 

Cross-Sector Collaboration 

External engagement and collaboration remain an area of focus for us because the energy transition will require joint efforts to achieve meaningful emissions reductions and evolve policy solutions. In 2022, we participated in or had membership in the following: 

  • World Bank Zero Routine Flaring by 2030: Initiative that aims to achieve consistency among efforts by governments, the oil and gas sector and development institutions to address routine flaring. 
  • The Environmental Partnership: Coalition of about 100 oil and natural gas companies working to improve methane emissions management. 
  • E&P Net-Zero Principles Roundtable: Facilitated by Ceres, a small group of financial sector stakeholders, E&P oil and gas companies and NGOs, seeking to define what it means to be a Paris-aligned E&P company. 
  • Net-Zero Business Alliance: Initiative from the Bipartisan Policy Center to bring together business leaders and frame an affirmative and pragmatic approach in the climate solutions debate and subsequently engage with governments (as a group and directly) to advance an aggressive climate strategy that is grounded in engineering, commercial and economic realities.  
  • Net-Zero Company Benchmark: Engaging with Climate Action 100+ twice each year to gather feedback to strengthen our approach to managing climate-related risk. 
  • Natural Gas Initiative: Program led by Stanford University researchers with participation from industry, government, inter-governmental organizations and foundations. Initiative aims to Increase public access to information about the accuracy of methane detection and quantification technologies. 
  • Pathways Alliance: Program that includes Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) as well as the Oil Sands Pathways to Net-Zero Initiative, which is an alliance of Canada’s top oil sands operators working toward achieving net-zero operational GHG emissions by 2050. ConocoPhillips was one of COSIA’s founding members. 
  • International Emissions Trading Association (IETA): Nonprofit business organization created in 1999 to establish a functional international framework for trading GHG emissions reductions. 
  • Climate Leadership Council (CLC): International policy institute to promote a carbon dividends framework in the U.S. 
  • Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC): Global voluntary partnership to share and expand the evidence base for effective carbon pricing policies.   
  • National Petroleum Council: Advisory Committee to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. As an NPC member, ConocoPhillips is leading a study on Natural Gas GHG Emissions Across the Value Chain, a multi-stakeholder effort aimed at delivering recommendations on ways to reduce the GHG footprint of natural gas. Read more on this and other policy efforts in Public Policy Engagement. 

Facilitated by Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization, a small group of financial sector stakeholders, E&P oil and gas companies and NGOs came together seeking to define what it means to be a Paris-aligned E&P company. Recognizing the E&P segment has limited opportunities to diversify its business model, the collaboration focused on solutions for reaching net-zero emissions that also meet transition demand.  

The resulting product, Key Elements for a Net Zero Transition for Operations at Oil and Gas Exploration & Production Companies, is a basis for engagement and direction as net-zero pathways are traveled. 

In addition to these groups, in July 2022 ConocoPhillips joined the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0 Initiative, a voluntary, public-private partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme, the European Commission, the Environmental Defense Fund and 100 oil and gas companies. OGMP 2.0 has emerged as a globally recognized initiative for methane emissions measurement and reporting and is aimed at minimizing methane emissions from global oil and gas operations. We are committed to improving the transparency of our methane emissions reporting and delivering on our methane reduction objectives and targets by collaborating with industry peers to accelerate best practices in our operations.  

In line with the Initiative’s guidance, we plan to incorporate source-level and site-level measurements when estimating methane emissions from our operations.  

To complement our work with OGMP 2.0, we are also participating in the Veritas Differentiated Gas Measurement and Verification Initiative, a U.S.-based methane measurement initiative run by the Gas Technology Institute (GTI). The Veritas program is an effort among academics, environmental groups, certification organizations and oil and gas operators to develop new tools to assess and verify measurement-informed methane emissions. The Veritas program developed a series of protocols to calculate emissions reductions, including protocols for methane intensity, measurements to inform emissions inventories, reconciliation of emission factor inventories with actual measurements, supply chain summation to aggregate multiple industry segments, and audit and assurance for third-party verification of an emissions inventory.  

We signed on to OGMP 2.0 and Veritas simultaneously as the two frameworks have the potential to operate in tandem. Our joint participation is an effort to influence the pace of action on methane emissions across the whole industry, not just at ConocoPhillips.