Sustainability and Stewardship in the Oil and Gas Industry Award

The SPE Sustainability and Stewardship in the Oil and Gas Industry Award of the Society of Petroleum Engineers recognizes the outstanding efforts and impacts of individuals in the upstream oil and gas industry, in innovating, adopting, and promoting key aspects of sustainable development at scale. The award will encompass: 

Environmental: Environmental sustainability, including protecting or enhancing biodiversity and ecosystems, reducing, or eliminating any form of greenhouse gas emissions, creating carbon-negative solutions, improving water management, or transforming waste to new valuable products or energy.

Social: Social sustainability, including engaging to create societal and community benefits, environmental justice, human rights, supporting industry staff to build on existing and learn new skills to open new career opportunities, and enabling a fair and just people-centered transition.¹

Innovation/Technology: Innovating to transform the energy system across process, system, and technology. Inclusive of environmental and social topics, as well as technological breakthroughs that reduce emissions, eliminate leaks, improve efficiency, enhance profitability and attractiveness, accelerate scaling, and create circulatory use of waste as feedstock. This can also encompass the effective use of data and analytics to improve decision making, identification, assessment, and reduction of risks, improvements in benefit quantification, streamlining and optimization of materials supply chain, or novel ways to accomplish the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

¹ A just transition seeks to ensure that the substantial benefits of a green economy transition are shared widely, while also supporting those who stand to lose economically – be they countries, regions, industries, communities, workers or consumers.

Eligibility Requirements

The conditions of eligibility for the award are as follows:

• Any professional member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers in good standing shall be eligible to receive the award.

• Deceased members may not be nominated for SPE Awards. If a previously nominated candidate dies after 1 January in the year of presentation, and if duly selected for the award, the presentation shall be made posthumously in accordance with special procedures to be prescribed by the SPE Board of Directors. Posthumous award presentations are otherwise prohibited.

• No recipient of SPE Honorary Membership, the John Franklin Carll Award, Lester C. Uren Award, DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal, or Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal shall be eligible to receive the award.

• No officer or member of the International Board of Directors of the Society shall be eligible to receive any award while serving on the Board. In addition, he or she will not be eligible to receive any award during the calendar year in which his or her term ends, and for a period of two full calendar years following the expiration of his or her term of service on the Board.

• No member of the Award Selection Committee shall be eligible to receive the award while serving as a member of the award committee in which they are judging, and for a period of two full calendar years following the expiration of his or her term of service on the committee.

• The award may only be presented to an individual for truly outstanding achievement.

• Self-nominated candidates are not eligible.

• Past recipients of the award are ineligible to receive it a second time.

   Submit a Nomination