In 2020, one of our petroleum-refining clients approached us to assist with ESG tracking and reporting. Like many companies, our client wanted to present meaningful ESG data to its investors and the public—but reporting was still relatively new and in flux, creating uncertainty about the precise types of information to collect, how to make sense of sometimes contradictory reporting standards, and where the company stood in relation to competitors.
Barr helped the refining company gain a sure footing on shifting terrain by developing two primary items. The first was a benchmarking table that showed how the organization’s 2019 ESG report ranked among those of the 15 midstream companies most similar to it. The second was a workbook that laid out comprehensive ESG reporting requirements for oil and gas companies, which allowed our client to pinpoint both the metrics it was already tracking and ones it needed to start tracking.
An especially valuable aspect of the workbook was Barr’s incorporation and centralization of the company’s existing data sources, including the locations of existing reports and details about information being tracked at particular facilities but not others. We also added instructions for gathering data in the correct format and for tracking new types of data.
Together, the two documents supplied the client with clear insights for validating its ESG metrics and reporting.
.