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The petrochemical industry is a major carbon emitter. As the main body of carbon emission reduction, petrochemical enterprises are also taking various measures to reduce carbon emissions and accelerate the transition to green and low-carbon. Under the circumstances of the "dual carbon" goals and the strengthening of regulatory supervision of listed companies, promoting green transformation is no longer an "option" but a "must-answer question". More and more petrochemical enterprises have begun to pay attention to, build and improve the environment, society and governance (ESG) system, and gradually increased the disclosure of ESG work.

According to the "2023 Petroleum and Petrochemical Industry ESG Rating Analysis Report" by Lianhe Credit, there are 46 listed companies in my country's petroleum and petrochemical industry, 24 of which disclosed ESG-related reports in 2023, with a disclosure rate of more than half. On May 1 this year, the "Guidelines for Sustainability Reports for Listed Companies" issued by the three major exchanges were officially implemented, and more than 450 listed companies will be required to disclose ESG information, including 10 companies in the petroleum and chemical industries. As a leading state-owned and private enterprise in the petrochemical field, its ESG report has a certain demonstration and leading role in the transformation and development of the industry and information disclosure, and further demonstrates the company's achievements in energy conservation, emission reduction and green development innovation.

According to disclosed reports, the total greenhouse gas emissions of China National Petroleum Corporation, China Petrochemical Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation are all on the rise.

The report shows that China Petroleum's total greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1 and scope 2) are the highest, about 171 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, a year-on-year increase of 6.6%; total methane emissions are 371,200 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 7.41%, and methane emission intensity is 0.34%. Sinopec's total greenhouse gas emissions are 169 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%, greenhouse gas emission intensity is 52.5 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent/per million yuan, and total methane emissions are 250.21 million tons. CNOOC has the lowest total greenhouse gas emissions, about 12.26 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, with the highest year-on-year increase of 12.7%.

Although the carbon emissions of the "three oil barrels" increased year-on-year in 2023, the unit comprehensive energy consumption indicators all decreased year-on-year. As another important indicator, energy conservation is mainly used to measure the environmental responsibility and energy management capabilities of enterprises, as well as the effectiveness of environmental protection and sustainable development efforts. In terms of this disclosed data, the data of China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec are close, while the data of China National Offshore Oil Corporation is only 29.33, less than half of the data of China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec.

In addition, the "Big Three Oil Companies" also disclosed data on the company's environmental protection investment, energy substitution and innovation investment, and used "fancy" carbon reduction methods such as CCUS and carbon trading, while developing new energy such as wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, and hydrogen energy, reflecting the companies' determination to achieve green transformation and low-carbon development.

As leading private petrochemical companies, Hengli Petrochemical, Oriental Shenghong, Rongsheng Petrochemical and Hengyi Petrochemical also released their 2023 ESG reports.

Overall, Hengli Petrochemical disclosed the most key performance indicators, while Hengyi Petrochemical disclosed the least. Among them, three companies disclosed the total greenhouse gas emissions data. Hengli Petrochemical had the highest emissions, Rongsheng Petrochemical had the lowest emissions, and the overall data was not much different. Hengyi Petrochemical did not disclose the total greenhouse gas emissions in the report.

In addition, all four companies disclosed the amount of investment in environmental protection. Oriental Shenghong invested the most, 767 million yuan, but compared with the 5.845 billion yuan invested in the previous year, it was down 86.88% year-on-year; Hengli Petrochemical invested the least, 233 million yuan, down 6% year-on-year. Rongsheng Petrochemical's environmental protection investment fell 24.57% year-on-year. Hengyi Petrochemical increased by about 6.5 times compared with the previous year.

In the ESG report, each company also disclosed data such as products and resource utilization from different dimensions. For example, Rongsheng Petrochemical seized the opportunity of clean technology and made the development of clean energy-related businesses one of the core pillars of the company's green development. In 2023, the company's clean energy consumption will be about 1.2 million megawatt-hours, which is equivalent to an annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of about 217,600 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; the revenue of clean technology-related products will exceed 92.9 billion yuan, accounting for about 29% of its total operating income. Hengyi Petrochemical is also actively developing and utilizing clean energy. Among them, the polyester plant has gradually carried out green electricity trading, with a green electricity trading volume of 3 million kWh.

Oil and chemical companies are increasingly aware that ESG is gradually becoming an important yardstick for measuring corporate sustainability. Data shows that the "Big Three Oil Companies" began exploring ESG governance early. PetroChina has disclosed its "Social Responsibility Report" since 2006, and Sinopec began its ESG development process in 2007. CNOOC also began to get involved in the clean, green, and low-carbon economy more than 10 years ago.

Li Jing, Partner of Climate Change and Sustainability Services, Financial Services, Greater China, EY, publicly stated that at present, my country encourages and enforces ESG information disclosure by A-share listed companies, which leads to some small and medium-sized enterprises choosing not to disclose, or the disclosed data remains qualitative, not quantitative, so non-head companies have a lot of room for improvement. "For non-head Chinese companies, they should improve their ESG management level in an orderly manner according to their own characteristics, the industry they are in and other objective conditions. In the future, investment institutions will check the data before investing, so companies must adhere to the completeness, accuracy and effectiveness of ESG reports when disclosing information."

Many industry insiders said that in order to promote carbon peak and carbon neutrality, my country is accelerating the construction of the ESG system, but due to its relatively late start, there is still a certain gap with Europe, the United States and other countries and regions.At present, we still need to fully consider the differences in economic development stages at home and abroad, build an ESG system based on China's national conditions, and coordinate the steady progress of energy security and economic development.