Biological diversity, or biodiversity, refers to the variety of life on Earth. As defined by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, it includes diversity of ecosystems, species and genes, and the ecological processes that support them. Natural diversity in ecosystems provides essential economic benefits and services to human society—such as food, clothing, shelter, fuel and medicines—as well as ecological, recreational, cultural and aesthetic values, and thus plays an important role in sustainable development. Biodiversity is under threat in many areas of the world. Concern about global biodiversity loss has emerged as a prominent and widespread public issue.
We recognize the importance of biodiversity conservation and support it through our values, performance, and communication and engagement.
Values: Protecting the safety and health of people and the environment is a Chevron core value. Therefore, we:
- Strive to design our facilities and conduct our operations to avoid adverse impacts to human health and to operate in an environmentally sound, reliable and efficient manner.
- Conduct our operations responsibly in all areas, including environments with sensitive biological characteristics.
Performance: We strive to avoid or minimize significant risks and impacts our projects and operations may pose to sensitive species, habitats and ecosystems. This means that we:
- Integrate biodiversity into our business decision-making and management through our Operational Excellence (OE) management system.
- Drive and assess our performance relating to biodiversity through key OE expectations, such as Environmental Stewardship, and processes, including HES Due Diligence for Property Transfers; Environmental, Social and Health Impact Assessment; and Risk Management.
- Understand that humans and the natural environment are interdependent and interact with each other in various ways. In managing our impacts we consider those interrelationships and the functions ecosystems perform in supporting sustainable economic development.
- Recognize that our activities could affect particularly sensitive or valuable biodiversity inside or outside of legally designated protected areas. Therefore we:
- Decide whether and how to operate in a protected or sensitive area, based on consideration of the specific circumstances of the area and operation involved.
- Operate in such areas only with government legal authorization, and where we are confident we can comply with all regulatory requirements and use operating practices appropriately protective of the area.
- Use our OE processes to avoid or minimize potential risks of our operations to sensitive biological resources and seek ways to make positive contributions to biodiversity conservation in the area.
Communication and Engagement: We undertake activities to raise internal and external awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity and how the company is addressing it. This includes:
- Communicating about our biodiversity-related activities to employees and outside audiences, such as through our Corporate Responsibility Report.
- Engaging with government, local communities and others to understand and work to address significant biodiversity issues in areas where we operate.
- Participating in industry associations and other forums to share and promote best practices for biodiversity conservation.
- Seeking to understand and, where appropriate, participating in development of external policy-making activities that affect our operations, such as those adopted under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and national, regional and local biodiversity policies and plans.
- Working with a variety of external organizations to make positive contributions to biodiversity conservation in areas where we operate and globally.
Updated: April 2012