Calendar10 July 2024

The last quarter was very busy: we appointed ExxonMobil’s Paul Krishna as our new Chair, welcomed Harbour Energy and Aker bp as new members, celebrated our 50th anniversary during Ipieca Week 2024, published three documents, participated in a number of UN IMO meetings, spoke at three industry events and ran four webinars for our members.

Ipieca Week 2024 – celebrating 50 years

This year’s Ipieca Week was huge for a lot of reasons. Not only did we bring together a record 400+ members and senior figures from UN, NGO, civil society and academic stakeholders, it also marked the 50th anniversary of Ipieca.

Ipieca was established at the request of UNEP back in 1974 to act as the engagement channel between the UN and industry. In the five decades that have followed we’ve formed impactful partnerships with a wide range of UN bodies, as well as NGO, civil society, business coalition and academic organisations across the areas of climate, nature, people and sustainability. Together we’ve contributed to addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing the world. Check out Ipieca’s key milestones and my article on the role of people and partnerships in achieving these.

Supporting UN conventions

From day one, Ipieca’s key role has been to support UN conventions. And 50 years later it still is. In quarter two, we took part in a number of International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings providing technical inputs and papers to working group meetings on greenhouse gas emissions life cycle analysis and pollution response.

Good practice guidance

Providing technical expertise is just one way we support UN conventions. We also produce freely available guidance to support industry to contribute to these conventions through advancing the environmental and social performance of their operations. In Q2 we published:

Health leading performance indicators data from Ipieca and IOGP members for 2023.

Find out more

This is the third progress report, highlighting how Ipieca and its members are implementing the Ipieca-WBCSD SDG Roadmap.

Find out more

For five decades, Ipieca has convened members and stakeholders to advance the industry’s environmental and social performance, supporting key United Nations conventions through operational good practice.

Find out more

We also sponsored the re-launch of the Energy local content map, which provides access to local content legislation, news and studies for over 30 countries around the world.

Putting environmental and social performance on the agenda

Ipieca secretariat and member representatives attend industry events to raise awareness of emerging sustainability topics and to share guidance and tools to help address these. Over the last 3 months we took part in:

  • Suriname Energy, Oil and Gas Summit 2024, where we shared pathways and good practices that industry can take to decarbonise operations
  • IOSC 2024, at which we presented our suite of marine spill preparedness and response guidance and our recently published set of webpages on dispersants
  • Arpel-Naturgas Week, during which we made the case for sustainability reporting, explaining its importance as well as providing updates on emerging ESG trends in South America

Member insights on key topics

At Ipieca we’re fortunate to count on 1,000+ sustainability experts from across our member companies sharing their knowledge and contributing to our workstreams.

We recently carried out short video interviews with some of them on key topics. You can check them out on Ipieca’s YouTube channel. I’ve also linked some of them below:

  • Ecopetrol’s Ana Cristina Sánchez Thorin (Ipieca Global Biodiversity Framework Task Force Co-chair) talks about the goals and targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework.
  • Halliburton’s Sean Whelan (Ipieca Supply Chain Working Group Chair) on the importance of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
  • Repsol’s Antonio López (Ipieca Climate Change Group Chair) explains the differences between Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and good practices and tools to reduce these.

New members and thanks

Finally, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our newest Ipieca members Harbour Energy and Aker bp, who join 78 other companies working as part of Ipieca to advance environmental and social performance across the energy transition. The outputs and progress made to support this work across the last quarter, and indeed the last 50 years, are thanks to energy and expertise of our member companies.

Brian Sullivan

Chief Executive Officer

Brian joined Ipieca as the Chief Executive Officer in 2011 following a 23 year career in bp. He graduated in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Imperial College, London, UK and was recruited into bp's Refining and Marketing international graduate programme in 1986.

During his time with bp he has had a varied career of technical, commercial, financial and leadership roles across the downstream value chain including crude and products trading, marine fuels, lubricants and alternative energy.

During his tenure at Ipieca, he has overseen the growth of the Association and leads their contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement and the Energy Transition. 2022 saw the launch of the Ipieca Principles, a new condition of membership promoting support for UN agreements and practices that align with them.

Brian is a Fellow of the Energy Institute.

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