At Beach Energy, we have grown in recent years from a relatively small organization with a narrow geographic footprint, to a mid-size company operating in Australia and New Zealand. Our organisation is also amid assessing opportunities to participate in renewable and emerging energy markets where our capabilities and experience can create value for our stakeholders, including preparing to produce lower emissions energy sources as the markets and requirements of those new energy sources matures.
Against this backdrop and having used the B4SI framework since 2019 to measure our social impact, we decided to take a step forward in 2023 and invest time and resources in the development of a new social performance strategy for the business. We reached out to the B4SI team to discuss the application of the newly launched B4SI Social Impact Compass to our needs, and before long we had our internal Compass Working Group assembled and our first workshop scheduled.
The Compass presented a unique opportunity to take stock of our social purpose as an organization, and to consider as a team, the opportunities, and challenges for our ability to contribute positively to society, within the framework of our business model and the breadth of our capability.
The guided Compass process included a kick-off meeting to agree project scope and timelines, two facilitated workshops with representatives from across Beach Energy sharing their views and experiences and resulted in the delivery of a management report with recommended next steps over the short, medium, and long term.
Throughout the comprehensive engagement with B4SI, our team contributed to the construction of a roadmap for the months and years ahead to work towards our vision of sustainably delivering energy for communities.
Since we concluded the process in June 2023, we have completed a Community and First Nations Economic Participation Plan and broadened our volunteering guidelines to foster greater participation. Using our FY23 B4SI benchmark report, in FY24 we will be developing a new Social Performance Strategy anchored in the insights gained from the B4SI Social Impact Compass outputs.
Linda French, Group Manager Social Performance and Community
Beach Energy is an ASX listed oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Adelaide, South Australia.