Industry Initiatives

Woodside participates in voluntary and statutory activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Voluntary activities include participation in:

• Greenhouse gas management plans – every Woodside operated and proposed development has a greenhouse management plan, which contains an emissions forecast and opportunities to reduce emissions. The plans allow efficiency benchmarking across Woodside’s facilities.
• Carbon Disclosure Project – a not-for-profit organisation that holds the largest database of corporate climate change information in the world.
• Greenhouse Challenge program – Woodside became the 100th voluntary member of the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Challenge program in 1997. Up until the program finished during 2009, we annually reported to government our greenhouse emissions performance, our plans to reduce emissions and community activities related to climate change. We received numerous awards under the program for outstanding performance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Statutory activities include compliance with:

• Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act 2006 – Woodside has participated in the Australian Government’s Energy Efficiency Opportunities program since its inception in 2006. The program operates on a five-year cycle and requires companies to assess their energy use, identify opportunities for reduction and report evaluated opportunities to Government. We have progressively been conducting energy efficiency assessments of our facilities. Assessments were completed during 2009 for the North Rankin A offshore production facility and the Karratha and Otway gas plants. The results of the assessments are published in our Sustainable Development Report 2009.
• National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 – Woodside has an Australian Government legislative requirement to report its energy use and greenhouse emissions. The Act came into effect in September 2007 and introduced a single national framework for the reporting and dissemination of information about the greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas projects, and energy use and production of corporations.

In addition to these programs, we have regularly contributed to the greenhouse gas debate with individual submissions or via our industry networks, including the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.