Environmental Report 2000 Index

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Our Vision & Environmental Principles Our vision The member companies of UKOOA aim to build a UK Oil and Gas Industry that will be environmentally sustainable and competitive through the 21st century, and that works for the benefit of all society. Our environmental principles The UK Oil and Gas Industry does not operate in isolation. It is a fully participating member of our complex industrial society and is subject both to the law of supply and demand and to the law of the land. In fact, our members operate under more than 200 different sets of regulations that are altered from time to time to reflect changing conditions or emerging issues. The industry works closely with Government and, following extensive discussion with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), a set of principles has been established that will be used to guide the development of future environmental regulation. These principles are that: continual improvement of the Industry's offshore environmental performance should be guided, as far as is practicable, by long term goal setting, considering all emission streams holistically; methods for achieving environmental goals should be flexible, appropriate to the asset life cycle, and promote innovation rather than relying on compliance against prescriptive standards or technologies; sound scientific analysis should be applied to assess environmental risk and impact. However, where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty will not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation; in all cases, agreed improvements should recognise the balance between benefit gained and cost incurred, as well as the balance between emission stream tradeoffs; the process of developing environmental regulations should be transparent and include stakeholder consultation; penalties should apply if environmental laws are broken.