Stakeholder Engagement In Corporate Environmental Sustainability For Oil And Gas Industry In Australia

Objectives

Discussion

Background

I am the project manager in an oil and gas company in Australia. My job is to supervise the oil and gas plantation and ensure the safety in terms of maintaining and supervising the infrastructures. It requires huge amount of expenses to renovate and maintain the existing machines. However, the company management does not want to allocate more money in maintenance and supervise. As per their opinion, they do not have any interest to invest badly because this maintenance does not generate any profit but in return every year the company is spending more money and time without getting any production. As a result of that it becomes impossible for me to run the maintenance program further. In fact, a hundred times I asked them to take decisions regarding the maintenance but nothing is done on this issue. In this dire situation, I sense that it is necessary to conduct a meeting with the stakeholders and engaging them by informing about the company decision. I believe that there will be a negative reaction from the stakeholders against such decision taken by the company and in return it will deliver a positive impact on this project. It can be argued that the stakeholders’ management will put focus on the understanding of the issues regarding the dispute and will be able to resolve this problem as environmental sustainability is an imperative concern for doing successful business in Australia.

Objectives

The purpose of this part is not to deal with the objectives of the stakeholders’ engagement program rather focusing on the aims of the learning project. Therefore, the objectives are as follows:

• To get a clear understanding of the types of stakeholders those who are engaged in the process of re-establishing corporate environmental sustainability in the company that is directly related to my role in the company (Larmer, Mergendoller and Boss 2015).
• To figure out the possible outcome of the project in order to analyse the critical elements in stakeholder engagement.  The outcome is related to the positive impacts and crucial result of the learning project (Eynon, Gambino and Török 2014).
• To learn the possible steps to mitigate the problem related to protect the corporate environment sustainability.
• Develop confidence in order to design the stakeholder engagement in the future design progress (Abele et al. 2015).
• To learn the principles those are stapled with the participation of the stakeholder in the activity.
• To learn which tools and techniques will be implemented in order to make the engagement more effective and efficient (Boss and Krauss 2014).
• To learn the communication methods that is going to be used in the stakeholder engagement process (Arcidiacono et al. 2016).

Methodology

The purpose of this part is to incorporate a methodology so that the entire process will be clearly outlined (Pecherskaya et al. 2016). In this regard, it can be argued that the role of the methodology is to create an environment to conduct the stakeholder engagement on a sound basis (Camden et al. 2015). Therefore, the first step is related to the review process of the stakeholder engagement.

Process

I am in charge of the entire process and plan to initiate my task as per the notes that I have taken from the stakeholder meeting. In fact, the stakeholders understand the importance of the meeting and express their concerned opinion regarding the corporate environment sustainability.

Review

This section is related to the review and analysis of the participated stakeholders’ feedback that are collected during the stakeholder engagement process. In this part, it is very important to get acknowledged with the reviews given by the stakeholders and categorised them into two section, one is going with the issue and another opposing it (Pecherskaya et al. 2016).

Process

Assessment

Besides this, it is also important to assess the stakeholder engagement with the process and compare it with the current literary evidences to procure more authentications in the discussion.

Resolution

After going through a thorough analysis and understanding regarding the stakeholder engagement in the corporate environmental sustainability, it is important to take necessary steps regarding the decision made by the stakeholders.

Managing challenges

However, there are some challenges that the company can face during engaging the stakeholders. The challenges are as follows:

Time consumption

Engaging the stakeholders can be identified as a time consuming process that the company must keep in mind. It is obvious that the company may have a number of stakeholders and managing and engaging them is not an easy task (Henisz 2017). Therefore, during the stakeholder engagement, it always takes time to manage all of them. Therefore, implementing a better communication plan is very important for the company to be developed.

Slow decision making process

The decision making process is not so fast to implement. Therefore, in case of dire situation it will be very problematic to engage all the stakeholders because there is limited time for the company to mitigate the problem as fast as they can (Luoma-aho 2015). As a result of that it is imperative to inform the stakeholders about any development on a daily basis.

Access to stakeholders

Due to huge numbers of the Stakeholders strength it is impossible to manage them equally (Caputo 2016). In addition to this, there are several layers that I have to go through to contact directly with each stakeholder. Therefore, it must be done in a simple way to procure a direct relation with the stakeholders.

Interpretation

There are a number of problems regarding the incorporation of the stakeholders in the engagement program. In fact, it cannot be stated that the purpose of conducting the meeting will always be evoked by the stakeholders in a same line. Often, there are ambiguities and misjudgements occur by the stakeholders. However, the role of the stakeholders is very important for the decision making procedure of a company. It can be stated that the stakeholders are the last resort that the company can be relied upon and in many cases when the company is not able to make any decision then it depends on the vital decisions of stakeholders. As a matter of fact, the stakeholders are identified as an alternative voice in order to make decision on behalf of the company. In response to this, one can rise question regarding the significance of incorporating the stakeholders in the decision making process of my company.

Review

In this context, it can be argued that my company is facing severe challenges regarding maintaining the corporate environment sustainability in Australia. As a matter of fact, the Australian government is very strict to follow such regulations related to the issues of ecology. The company authority is reluctant to make any decision in this regard. As a result of that I have to opt for an alternative voice and the stakeholder engagement is referred as the best option for this.

Conclusion 

The purpose of this report is to find the importance of not only stakeholder engagement but also enlighten the aspects of the learning project. As far as the project learning is concerned it can be stated that the role of the stakeholder engagement is an effective tool to project a better and positive outcome. The methodology is associated with the role of creating the process more effective with a proper plan. Moreover, the objectives are also provided a reflection of the purpose of the learning project and the way the report portrays it. Therefore, it can be conclude that the learning project is showing the vitality of the stakeholder engagement in a corporate organisation and create a better environment to deal with the issues like corporate environmental sustainability.

Stakeholders’ engagement is identified as a practice of integrating, interacting and influencing the stakeholders in order to get success in a project. In this regard, it can be argued that the vision and the enthusiasm of the stakeholders reflect the successful completion of a project. Therefore, it requires the expectations, perceptions, personal agendas to influence the project. As a matter of fact, the social and environmental responsibility of business is a major issue that circulated around Australia. Moreover, the engagement of the stakeholders in a discussion regarding the aims and objectives of the CSR in future sustainability is very important for a company (Vintró, Sanmiquel and Freijo 2014). As per the environmental legislation in Australia, it is important for the Australian companies to follow the regulations of the sustainability. The Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act has been enacted in addition to the Environmental Protection Act (1997) in order to protect the environment in Australia (Business.gov.au 2018). Any violation of the environmental protocol both domestically and internationally will cost a great challenge to the business operations of any company both in terms of brand reputation and the legal disputes.

Therefore, the purpose of this report is to create an understanding, regarding the learning project related to the stakeholders’ engagement in corporate environmental sustainability and its influence to deliver a successful project plan in the oil and gas sector in Australia. In addition to this, the objective of this learning project is to recommend a methodology to mitigate the challenges during the process.

Reference

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