Page 10 - Suncor Report on Sustainability 2014 - English

08 Suncor: report on sustainability 2014

Performance goals –

our journey

A conversation with Arlene Strom,

vice president, sustainability &

communications, about our journey

on performance goals

In 2009, we set an industry precedent by that we had the opportunity to lead and
First, shortly after we declared these goals, our

adopting corporate-wide performance goals bring others with us. And I think it did inluence growth strategy introduced additional in situ
in four key environmental areas. With the the rest of the industry. Over the past ive projects which have higher energy intensities.

2015 deadline for achieving the goals fast years, the whole scope of collaboration within Second, Suncor merged with Petro-Canada,
approaching, we are preparing to launch
the industry has changed and we’ve seen the introducing offshore production to our portfolio.

a set of post-2015 performance goals that level of ambition and aspiration increase across While the energy intensity of offshore operations
will include, for the irst time, social goals. the board.
is relatively low during peak production, we’ve

We asked Arlene Strom to talk about the seen an increase in intensity over the goal
lessons learned over the last ive years –
At the time, was there any discussion period as wells have depleted. It’s the addition

and the new challenges that lay ahead.
that you were taking a risk – that if you of these signiicant assets to our base that has
didn’t meet these targets, there would made our energy eficiency and air emission

Why did Suncor adopt these goals
be consequences?
goals a lot more ambitious.
back in 2009?
Nobody likes to set a goal they don’t meet,

Arlene: There were a couple of things driving whether it’s a training goal for a race you’re The energy eficiency goal is a critical
us. One was what we were hearing from running or declaring you’re on a diet and then one when it comes to reducing

our stakeholders, including an organization falling short. So whenever you set goals, there’s greenhouse gas emissions. If you
called Ceres, which is a network of investors, always the risk of not meeting them. But if you fail to meet that one, do you expect

labour, environmentalists and other public don’t aspire, you don’t really know what you Suncor to be penalized by investors
or other stakeholders?
interest groups we’ve been engaging with can achieve. And with these performance goals,
for a number of years. They urged us to set we’ve already achieved a lot by challenging Most of our investors want us to operate in

irm targets and goals. This dovetailed with ourselves to do better.
the most effective and eficient way possible.
the second driver – a renewed determination Many also want us to be a leader in terms of

by our own leadership group to drive So how close is Suncor to achieving our environmental performance. I think they
performance improvements across the these goals?
recognize that, even if we don’t fully meet

company. We wanted to raise the bar and I think we are very close. We expect to meet that goal, we’ve made a lot of progress. And
saw the setting of goals as a way to push the water and land reclamation goals and they also understand that, when it comes to

ourselves to achieve more.
we believe we can meet the emissions one long-term assets like the oil sands, the kind of
as well. The energy intensity target is going game-changing technologies required to really

At the heart of it, we were being asked to to be the hardest to hit, and that’s for a ‘bend the curve’ on GHG emissions take time
lead. In fact, that’s exactly how Ceres put it –
couple of reasons.
to be tested, commercialized and implemented.