Reducing impacts to land and habitats

Approach

ExxonMobil employs a comprehensive process to understand how our activities interact with the environmental settings. We operate in locations with a broad range of environmental and socioeconomic conditions and use a robust environmental management system to identify, assess, mitigate and monitor impacts on the environment, including potential effects on biodiversity and the value particular ecosystems provide.

As part of that assessment, we measure the benefits gained from the biodiversity of an environment. For example, forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems and aquatic ecosystems each consist of all the organisms in their area. These ecosystems, functioning in a healthy relationship, provide benefits like natural pollination of crops, clean air, and physical well-being to humans and animals.

Using the results of the assessments, we apply an approach based on the value ecosystems provide. This approach is ideal for identifying and measuring the potential impacts to the ecosystem, using economic, social structure, and environmental measurements. This work is guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Management and application

For major projects, we use an Environmental, Social and Health Impact Assessment process to identify and evaluate environmental, social and health risks.  We also use an Environmental Business Planning process to identify, assess and establish solutions to environmental issues (e.g., potential mitigation measures) throughout the life of the asset.

In areas of high biodiversity like critical habitats¹, we follow the Cross Sector Biodiversity Initiative’s mitigation hierarchy², a best-practice decision-making process to help avoid, reduce, restore and offset impacts to biodiversity. As part of this mitigation process, our engineering teams consider integrating nature-based solutions, including remediation and restoration, into design decisions throughout the asset life cycle. 

Land and habitat management training is available to all employees to highlight the importance of this focus area, our approach and available tools. Included are examples of active ExxonMobil programs. 

Project Environmental Standards

In 2021, ExxonMobil updated and enhanced our Project Environmental Standards for Land Use and Marine Sound, a system of standards that inform project concept selection and facility design. These Standards enable us to:

• Avoid and/or reduce adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts related to the permanent or temporary use of land, including land within critical habitat or with high ecosystem value.
• Identify, assess and manage risks associated with marine sound-producing activities and to consistently implement mitigation in a structured manner.

Operations near protected areas

ExxonMobil routinely screens the locations of our major operating facilities using the World Database of Protected Areas, managed by the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. In 2020, we estimated that nearly 30% of major operating sites were within five kilometers of designated environmentally protected areas. We factored this information into our facilities’ environmental business plans to continue enhancing protective measures and inform our emergency response plans.

FOOTNOTES

¹_{Critical habitats, as described by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standard 6 (PS6) on Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management of Living Natural Resources (IFC, 2012a), are areas with high biodiversity value, including (i) habitat of significant importance to Critically Endangered and/or Endangered species; (ii) habitat of significant importance to endemic and/or restricted-range species; (iii) habitat supporting globally significant concentrations of migratory species and/or congregatory species; (iv) highly threatened and/or unique ecosystems; and/or (v) areas associated with key evolutionary processes.}
²_{CSBI (2015). A cross-sector guide for implementing the mitigation hierarchy.}