Our report covers Statoil activities during the period 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2009. We aim to report on all relevant parts of our business, including our share of joint ventures where the partners have direct ownership interests in the assets of the venture and the partners have joint control. Insofar as we have interests in entities in which we have significant influence and/or may have significant impacts on Statoil, we seek to report if appropriate. However, since we run world wide operations and employ some 29,000 people it is impossible to cover everything. We therefore have to prioritise hard when defining the content. The two most crucial principles in this respect are:
- Materiality: The selected articles must represent significant material value for Statoil, be it in the form of long-term strategy or traditional bottom line value.
- Responsiveness: Our report content must respond to an expectation among our stakeholders - ranging from shareholders, NGOs, media, government agencies or the public.
If the material gets a high score on both materiality and responsiveness, it is a candidate for the report. If not, it might not belong in an annual and sustainability report, but can be communicated elsewhere. The figure below helps us to seek out the most relevant material to meet these principles.
GRI indicator protocol
We report our sustainability performance via the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which is a cross-sectoral framework for reporting on issues relating to sustainability. This includes continuous reporting on health, safety and the environment (climate), human resources and social responsibility. We report at GRI application level A+. The plus sign indicates that the report has been externally assured.
Issue management
At Statoil we have developed an issue management system that helps us directing our communication attention to the most critical issues. This is conducted in an annual process with quarterly updates on activities to mitigate against reputation loss deriving from our activities. The issue management list consist of both current challenging issues and emerging issues, i.e. issues that we foresee will become challenging in the short term future.
Corporate risk management
Our Corporate Risk Management team's (CRM) main objective is to make sure that the Corporate Executive Committee (CEC) and Board of Directors (BoD) are aware of Statoil's total risk profile (both with regard to the upside as well as downside) and to adjust management priorities accordingly. Corporate risk management should enhance the financial robustness of Statoil in order to improve its ability to maximise value.
Media analysis
We are constantly monitoring media coverage of our company and our industry in order to be able to respond to the issues that are being discussed in the open.
Management and employees analysis
Finally, we include both management and employee levels in the organisation to seek out the most relevant material through a qualitative analysis of the most important issues that we write about. This includes efforts from more than one hundred people in Statoil.
Our starting point is the issues identified through the organisation's own corporate risk management and business management systems, which represent the prioritisations made by management and employees in the group. These issues are then assessed in relation to the perspectives and interests of external stakeholders. Drawing on this input, our report addresses the issues identified as most material to our business.
Stakeholder dialogue
Throughout our business we meet and engage with stakeholders on a regular basis. In preparation of this report, we also received input in 2009 from various stakeholders on the concerns and considerations they have in connection with our business.
Throughout the year we also work with the leading market research company TNS Gallup to survey the general public and select stakeholder groups in key markets, recording their impressions and views of the company, including our corporate strategy and ability to address key risks and opportunities.
Accounting standard
Pursuant to the requirements of Norwegian and European Union (EU) regulations, we have prepared our consolidated financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the EU. The accounting policies applied by the Group also comply with IFRS as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
These IFRS standards have been applied consistently to all periods presented in the consolidated financial statements and when preparing an opening IFRS balance sheet at 1 January 2006 (subject to certain exemptions allowed by IFRS 1) for the purpose of the transition to IFRS.
