Environmental management in the petroleum industry.

The increased awareness of the deterioration of the biophysical environment and change in ecological
values are affecting the relationship of organizations with the biophysical environment. The
management of green issues has been peripheral to organizations' business strategy and dealt with in a
piecemeal manner. However, organizations are recognising the strategic importance of the
management of green issues and are introducing internal environmental management systems to deal
with such issues.
The management of green issues has to be dealt with by most organizations, and virtually all industrial
organizations. In this work an 'ecological complex framework' has been developed in order to
systematically investigate and represent the social process associated with ecological forces and
environmental controls affecting the relationship of organizations with the biophysical environment.
The aim of the framework developed in this work is first to understand how and what green issues are
noticed by organizations and how they respond to them. Second to bring green issues into strategic
management research.
To allow a coherent investigation of this issue this work has concentrated on one specific industry, the
oil industry, with special focus on the refining activity. A case study of the Brazilian oil organization
Petrobras was undertaken to investigate the problem. In this case study representatives of Petrobras
were interviewed about their roles in the management of green issues. These representatives ranged
from operational staff through to senior management at refineries and head office. In addition to the
case study environmental managers from other oil organizations in the UK were interviewed and a
content analysis of corporate literature of all oil organizations studied was undertaken.
The findings of this investigation have shown that the management of green issues have become an
important issue in oil refineries' strategies. However, due to the complexity and uncertainty of
stakeholders' ecological demands, oil organisations are still learning how to recognise their relevance
and strategic implications.