OREANDA-NEWS. September 25, 2013. His Excellency Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada, Minister of Energy and Industry, launched the sector’s 2012 sustainability report and awarded six companies for excellence in sustainability reporting and performance in 2012.

The third edition of the event, which was held at the Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC),  provided an important opportunity for the sector to take stock of the progress being made in the adoption of sustainable development principles and to reaffirm its commitment to current and future sector-wide programmes.

In his keynote address, H.E. Dr. Al-Sada hailed the sector’s commitment to sustainable development, and said it has had a positive impact on Qatar’s position as an energy leader. “This significant effort has also helped align the industry with Qatar’s National Vision 2030 and the National Development Strategy, both of which were guided and launched by His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Emir of the State of Qatar,” he added.

Dr. Al-Sada said “this report consolidates the remarkable progress of this initiative in driving sector-wide performance and transparency.” His Excellency expressed confidence that this year’s report and awards “will be another stepping stone towards achieving our future direction of recognizing progressive sustainability performance.”

Minister Al-Sada, who envisioned and guided the development of the Sustainable Development Industry Reporting (SDIR) scheme, congratulated participants and called for “collective effort by the entire spectrum of the energy and industry sector to achieve higher levels of commitment to sustainability, performance, and innovation.”

In concluding his remarks, the Minister of Energy and Industry called for developing the reward scheme from sustainable development reporting into sustainable development achievements by incorporating sustainability into the governance of the entire energy and industry sector”. He invited the spectrum of stakeholders to “take significant steps in aligning the energy and industry sector and quantifying its contribution to national sustainable development frameworks on the social, economic, human, and environmental frontiers.”

The Energy and Industry Sector’s Annual Sustainable Development Ceremony is one of the largest and most prestigious annual events organized by the Ministry of Energy and Industry in partnership with Qatar Petroleum. Held under the patronage of His Excellency Dr. Al-Sada, the event was attended by QP directors and corporate managers, the CEOs and other top officials of participating companies from the energy and industry sector, as well as by senior delegates from ministries and different government agencies.

This year’s event also featured an exhibition area where all the 35 participating companies had the opportunity to showcase their sustainability projects as well as present their company-level sustainability reports for 2012.

During the event, the video “The Foundation of Lasting Success” was also screened for the first time, and it showcased the sector’s commitment and success stories related to sustainable development (SD), corporate social responsibility (CSR) and industry best practices in health, safety and the environment (HSE).

The event also saw the official launching of the logo of the Qatar Energy and Industry Sector Sustainability Report. This development marks a deliberate effort to bring the concept of sustainable development to the forefront of the industry agenda and to promote the initiative by establishing innovative sectoral, national and international cooperations.

To complement the SDIR programme, QP’s HSE Regulations and Enforcement Directorate developed over the past year the sustainability awards programme to recognize high-quality sustainability reporting and performance. All the 35 companies that submitted their sustainability reports automatically qualified for the award scheme. This year, an independent judging panel made up of world-renowned sustainable development experts assessed the reports, and the judging process was managed by Ernst and Young.

There were six winners of the awards for excellence in sustainability reporting and in performance related to this year’s focus areas of health and well-being of the workforce as well as energy and water management.

For excellence in sustainability reporting, RasGas Company Ltd was the winner among organizations with more than 500 employees and the runner-up was Qatar Fertilizer Company (QAFCO). Among organizations with less than 500 employees, the winner was Mesaieed Power Company (MPower) and the runner-up was Qatar Fuel Additives Company Ltd (QAFAC).

For excellence in performance related to the 2012 SDIR focus areas. Qatargas was the winner among organizations with more than 500 employees and Qatar Vinyl Company (QVC) was the winner among organizations with less than 500 employees.

Implemented for the past three years, the SDIR Programme has become a key mechanism for supporting the sector’s implementation of sustainability. Based on the premise of what gets measured gets managed, the programme has focused on both company- and sector-wide reporting of economic, environmental and social performance, and rewarding of good practice.
The programme is focusing on the creation of a sector-level sustainability strategy, national and international alignment particularly to QNV 2030 and NDS 2011-2016, policy enhancement, performance improvement, and recognition of outstanding contributions to the sector’s sustainable development agenda.

Commenting on the future of the SDIR programme, Mr. Saif Al-Naimi, Director of QP’s HSE Regulations and Enforcement Directorate, said: “This year, the sector has risen to the challenge of achieving higher levels of disclosure by a larger number of companies while also producing the report much earlier than in previous years. Areas of particular improvement include higher data quality, greater performance insights, improved timeliness and expanded coverage.”

“Participation in the SDIR programme has increased from 33 to 35 companies. The number of companies reporting on more than 75% of the indicators has also increased, from 14 to 25. Overall coverage of all 33 SDIR indicators was 83% in 2012, enabling us to discern emerging trends and identify areas of strength and weakness for the sector as a whole. It also provides useful comparative information on performance for each reporting company,” he added.

“We will continue to focus on offering participating companies the tools and guidance through documentation and workshops on a range of important topics, including, quality enhancement for public reporting, guidance for disclosing five-year sustainable development plans, sustainability focus areas and report assurance processes. Most importantly, in line with the proposed framework, we shall promote the SDIR programme and sector on the national stage, using the data and information gathered to inform policymakers, generate dialogue and engagement on sustainable development,” Mr. Al-Naimi explained.

QP aims to engage a wider audience on sustainable development in a more interactive manner and has created an online version of the report with links to individual company reports. For more information, please visit http://www.hse-reg-dg.com/qeisr2012/WWW/index.html.