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In Maracaibo, Venezuela, employee Joe Wright plays with children of the orphanage Casa Hogar Simon Rodriguez, which ChevronTexaco built and supports with employee volunteers.
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Our Direct Social Responsibilities
ChevronTexaco's operations can affect people's lives and society in numerous ways. The social issues we believe we are most directly responsible for are:
- conducting our business in an honest and ethical manner;
- valuing and respecting employees, including supporting diversity, hiring local employees, and providing employees with training and development opportunities;
- protecting the health and safety of people who work on our behalf or live in the communities where we operate;
- engaging with and contributing to the communities where we work;
- supporting and promoting universal human rights consistent with the legitimate role of business;
- participating constructively in shaping public policy on issues that directly affect our company.
Helping Address Broader Social Issues
Companies such as ChevronTexaco operate in regions of the world facing societal challenges that are beyond the boundaries of an individual company's activities or sphere of influence, such as poverty, public health, education, human rights, and national and regional stability.
Although we cannot and should not assume the role of government, we accept the challenge - in cooperation with all sectors - to help address these issues. Our core business of supplying affordable, reliable energy is an important part of economic development and improving people's quality of life. In addition to supplying this energy, we provide employment and help employees develop skills and experience, spur economic growth, transfer technology, and contribute to the communities where we operate.
In many countries, national governments have taken direct control over their energy resources, and global energy companies operate in partnership with these governments. We recognize, however, that the benefits of energy resources have not always reached the local communities where we operate. Some countries and regions have been described as suffering from the so-called "resource curse," a term economists use to describe locations with abundant natural resources that are prone to perform worse on economic and social development indicators than more resource-poor countries. ChevronTexaco is concerned about this issue. In our view, addressing fundamental issues related to poverty and health is a critical stepping stone to being able to help find solutions to the range of other complex social, economic and environmental issues where we operate.
About this section: Working to Measure Social Impacts
Measuring and reporting on the social impacts of commercial operations are still in an early state of development, compared with financial and, to a lesser extent, environmental reporting. Many of the topics addressed in the social section of this report do not lend themselves easily to quantifiable measurement. Where possible, we have provided specific performance data, but the majority of the data are qualitative. ChevronTexaco is among the many companies working to better understand, measure and report our social impacts and performance.
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