An inconvenient truth attached to the mission of achieving carbon neutrality, for the moment, at least, is it can’t be accomplished without petroleum.

“The versatility of petroleum is very often overlooked,” Todd Stevens, former president and CEO of the California Resources Corp. (CRC), said during the Reuters Future of Oil and Gas conference in December. “It’s obviously a preeminent fuel source, but it’s an essential building block in everyday household goods, construction materials, your cell phone, medical devices. Zero-emission and low-emission vehicles like Teslas and the like are heavily plastic because they have to be light enough to be able to have the battery life and range about it.”

Stevens left the company on Dec. 31.

Stevens’ company has adopted sustainability goals aligned with California’s standards for 2030. They include increasing the use of recycled water by 30% over volumes used in 2013, the year CRC was founded. They also include generating 10 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources to support oil and gas operations; and designing a carbon capture system at its flagship Elk Hills power plant, which would reduce the company’s CO2 emissions by 30% from the 2013 baseline.

Stevens said he supported an all-of-the-above energy policy, in part because of climate variations in regions.

“Not everyone has the climate like we have here in California where you have areas where wind is very capable of being used and you have areas where the sun shines for most of the year,” he said. “So, you have to look at that intermittency issue. It has to be safe, reliable, affordable and, in today’s environment, you have to think about security as we import a lot of energy from other sources.”

Demand for Canadian Crude

Norrie Ramsay, executive vice president for upstream at Cenovus Energy Inc., navigates the high environmental standards of oil-rich Canada with a steady commitment to innovation. There is a healthy demand for Canadian crude, and Ramsay wants to keep it that way.

“We’ve got a national price for carbon and a provincial cap on our oil sands emissions,” he said. It’s an unprecedented commitment to moving towards a low-carbon future. As long as you accept that hydrocarbons will be part of the future, it makes sense in the near term that it should come from a jurisdiction like Canada.

“Canada has the highest environmental standards,” he continued. “It’s very transparent from a data viewpoint, and we as a company and our industry is committed to reducing our emissions from our products now and over time.”

But restricting emissions of greenhouse gases is just part of Cenovus’ strategy. Economic and social considerations are also central, particularly in relation to indigenous communities where the company operates. For decades, the company has engaged in meaningful consultation and long-term agreements, including $1.5 billion spent with indigenous-owned businesses, as well as education and training.

“There’s a history in Canada [with indigenous peoples] that isn’t great,” Ramsay admitted, “and we’re all collectively trying to improve it.”

Can We Talk?

For an industry among the leaders in the movement toward net-zero, oil and gas has struggled in the popularity department. “There’s clearly a trust issue there,” Ramsay said. The problem stems from ineffectively making the case that the industry is walking the talk about clean energy.

“We can’t be insular as an industry,” Stevens said. “Even though your Venn diagram might not entirely overlap, you have to have conversations with everyone involved in the regulatory environment, the political environment, so they understand what you bring to the table and really how much of a good steward we are of the environment.”

The intense emphasis on safety in industrial settings has made them safer than a lot of office environments, he said, but that’s something the public needs to know and won’t until companies make more effort to communicate.

“It does start with facts and you have to be out there willing to tell your story, being proactive both as a company, as a trade association, as an industry, and be engaged,” Stevens said. “You have to be engaged.”