How, why and to what extent are sustainability disclosures produced in the Norwegian O&G offshore supply companies?

Abstract

This research paper makes an atternpt to find out the answers to questions of the extent, reasons and mechanisms of 'sustainability disclosures production in Norway within the O&G offshore supply companies, the cluster of the Norwegian Shipowners Association. The problem of sustainability disclosures and accountability of business seems interesting for the detail ed exploration, taking into account the specific contextual peculiarities of the chosen industry. Nowadays the issues of sustainable management and the disclosure sustainability data on the special indicators are considered as quite new dimensions in the process of managing an industrial organization. The O&G industry and its offshore supply cluster in Norway have always been under the widespread attention of different interested groups of society; that is why the issue of sustainability disclosures as a tool to reduce uncertainties between business and society is worth being analyzed in-depth. In order to answer the research question we have accomplished the following tasks. At first, we have represented the operationalization of the central concepts in our work - 'sustainability' and 'sustainability disclosures' from both theoretical and practical points of view. The tas k of defining the extent to which the Norwegian offshore supply companies produce sustainability disclosures has been carried out through a survey of the list of companies, which has shown the distribution of standards and guidelines applied to produce such disclosures basing on the commitment to the national and international legislation and the voluntaryapproaches. The tasks of reasons and mechanisms of sustainability disclosures have being done through the analysis of case studies of two offshore suppliers - Acergy and Technip Norge, which understand and disclose data on sustainability in their own different ways. The results of our research have shown that the sustainability concept of sustainability is operationalized through the lens of 'project engineering' context of the O&G offshore supply operations. The main accent is made on the strategic objectives of quality, health, safety, environment and security within the engineering daily routines in the offshore. The motivation for the regular production of sustainability disclosures bases on the pressure of the most crucial stakeholder groups: the national government, clients, and the employees unions, every of which has the particular data expectations. The mechanisms of sustainability disclosures are characterized by the domination of internal procedural standards and the data disclosure only to particular stakeholders. The framework of international sustainability reporting standards application is represented weak in the offshore supply cluster, but has a potential for development.