The importance of the energy business playing a participatory role in today’s interconnected world cannot be overstated.

Some might say it is better to just keep your head down and get on with the job of finding and producing hydrocarbons. Others would argue that is an approach more akin to an ostrich burying its head in the sand (a myth, by the way), and that for the upstream business the need to engage fully with society is crucial.

This point was stressed at a recent European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers event in Amsterdam by the Dutch scientist and commentator Wouter van Dieren. A director at the think tank for sustainability and innovation, Instituut voor Milieu-en Systeemanalyse, he is also a member of the global think tank The Club of Rome.

Discussing the complexity of today’s world—technically, politically and socially—he admitted we all remain “still very dependent on fossil fuels” and are faced (in this industry) with the conflicted conundrum that “we are concerned citizens on one hand and technologists on the other.”

What the oil and gas industry needs to account for, he advised, is that “the value system out there is becoming very different.” The importance, therefore, of our industry establishing shared common values with society at large is critical.

Van Dieren gave a very Dutch example, citing Fokker, once the world’s oldest and most dominant aircraft builder, which failed to sense a change in the wind. “Once we went to see Fokker to talk about wind turbines. ‘Your propellers are the best for wind turbines,’ we said. They kicked us out the door. A few years later, they went bankrupt. Not because of us, but because they did not see the new value chain.”

What also would help the sustainability of the oil and gas industry, he added, is strong leadership. He has been involved in numerous studies, one of them entailing research on the decommissioning of 700 North Sea platforms. If fully removed, this would cost about $135 billion.

He has worked with operators including BP, Shell, TAQA and ExxonMobil on a “rigs to reefs”-style program. Doing this would mean estimated savings of about $68 billion and continue providing recognized seabed nature havens.

But this kind of broad program needs a coordinated approach, and Van Dieren has identified a clear weakness: “The difficulty is the lack of leadership in the oil industry. Leadership is scarce.”

If so, then we should be concerned. This business is under constant external scrutiny. But after countless multicompany cooperative projects it remains a multiheaded beast with no single coherent voice.

Without strong leadership, our industry will struggle to expound a relevant set of common values to the fast-changing world outside. And as Fokker discovered when it went bankrupt in 1996, a failure to quickly recognize and adapt to changing times can put even the biggest companies into a fatal tailspin.

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