Clara Altobell
VP ESG and Business Innovation at Serica Energy

This week at Serica we published our third Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report so I thought I’d write a few words on why.  Our Annual Financial Report shows how we’re performing on a financial level, our ESG report concentrates on the ways in which the Company operates to achieve these results.

We began reporting on ESG after becoming a significant UK production operator in December 2018. Our first ESG report set a benchmark on how we were performing as a responsible operator.  We opted to use the GRI standards and the materiality assessment process to identify which metrics to report. We also used the UNSDGs to guide us and established internal committees to encourage our staff to get involved, namely our Emissions Reduction, Charity, Diversity and Inclusion and Education Committees. The reporting process also helped us to assess our HR and supply chain practices and whether we were providing the optimum conditions for our staff, suppliers and contractors.

One result of this process is a lot of tables, with data and lists formulated specifically to help analysts and investors compare Serica’s performance to our peers and the industry at large. However, this data alone doesn’t necessarily reflect the personality of the Company or explain the reality behind our ESG performance and how we manage the challenges we face. This is where the front end of the report comes in. We’ve called it ‘Navigating the Energy Transition’ and this really reflects the fact that we are on a journey and our part right now is to provide energy security to the UK in a responsible and sustainable way. 

We have 170 staff and so the company is small enough to give everyone a voice and be able to celebrate how our people's activities have contributed towards Serica being a caring and responsible company. This comes from the people working on our offshore platform finding ways to reduce our emissions, the Charity Committee supporting local causes and greater awareness of the importance of diversity and inclusion through training, policy changes and celebration. 

The reporting process has many advantages, it improves the awareness within the company of what’s important, it demonstrates how we’re performing and helps us set targets and shows the wider world what matters to us as a company. This in turn, hopefully, encourages people to work for us, partner with us and invest in us. The process of writing and producing a meaningful ESG report leads companies to look analytically at their methods of working and to set up the ways to keep reliable records and set relevant targets.  The more companies that commit to ESG reporting, the better it will be for industry performance, sharing best practices and ultimately supporting the global energy transition. All in all, this report has been a team effort and a rewarding and enlightening process.

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