Despite having only been formally established at the beginning of 2021, the new IADC Sustanability Committee has hit the ground running with various ESG initiatives. Recognizing the importance of the topic, the Committee was established to further address global concerns associated with climate and environmental risk.
This ongoing ESG dialogue within the drilling industry has engendered numerous conversations about the burgeoning best practices for the industry. With the drilling industry containing a myriad of drilling contractors, with disparate levels of operational capabilities, the IADC Sustainability Committee sought fit to create a consensus when it comes to ESG transparency. That’s why the IADC Sustainability Committee members formed a new workgroup specifically tasked with developing reporting guidance for drilling contractors.
With more than 15 onshore and offshore companies involved in the Committee, finding a consensus should be meandering but democratic. The workgroup is also in the process of reaching out to numerous standards and ratings agencies in order to ensure comprehensive input regarding the workgroup’s work-product. Reporting guidance can be a helpful resource to industry professionals since it can provide details on reporting processes, commonplace examples, and easily avoidable pitfalls.
The first initiative, before the Committee was officially formed, was to conduct a survey of IADC Member companies to understand the ESG landscape among its Membership. This representative sample of IADC Members provided the committee with the contextual background to set benchmarks in the future. These benchmarks would be an important first step in measuring the drilling industry’s ongoing improvement with respect to the growing bevy of ESG requirements, be it from regulators, standards bodies, the investment community, or any other stakeholder.
The Sustainability Committee is led by Co-Chairs:
- Neil Forrest, VP of Operational Integrity at Seadrill
- Jesse Hein, Environmental Manager at Patterson-UTI Drilling
In addition to the reporting guidance efforts done on behalf of drilling contractors of all shapes and sizes, the Sustainability Committee is also working to put together a panel for the upcoming Annual General Meeting happening in Dallas, Texas in early November 2021.
Interested in Sustainability?
Drilling Contractors interested in joining the Committee may contact the Sustainability Committee Staff Liaison, Thad Dunham (Thad.Dunham@iadc.org), IADC’s Director of Government & Industry Affairs for Offshore.
