Social Responsibility Report Suncor Energy Inc.

1. Consider and discuss the impact of the rising price of gasoline on as many other products and services as possible.

Despite natural gas being cleaner compared to coal, its use still has impacts on the air quality, as well as human health. Besides, its production has enormous environmental consequences in form of habitat destruction. Moreover, the contribution of natural gas production to climate change is just slightly less compared to coal in terms of energy. Furthermore, a decrease in the natural gas reserves has led to doubling of its price. This makes it a more volatile and less attractive alternative for electricity production compared to clean sources such as solar and wind. There is also an opportunity of meeting power generation and heating needs using efficiency measures and renewable energy sources rather than natural gas. As such, Ontario is left with an alternative of considering most efficient and environmental friendly energy sources, which include hydropower, solar, ground heat, biomass, and wind.

Ontario has its own creative and effective strategies to combat climate change. One of Ontario’s goal is a low-carbon future. To accomplish this the province started making carbon reductions in 1990 and are on track to reduce carbon emissions by 15% in 2020, 37 per cent in 2030 and 80 per cent in 2050 (Climate Change Action Plan, 2017). Ontario’s target of reducing emissions by 6% was met on schedule in 2014 (Climate Change Action Plan, 2017). One of the reasons this has been made possible is because of Ontario’s investment in carbon reduction. For example, in 2015 Ontario committed $325-million payment to Ontario’s Green Investment Fund to support programs that help households and businesses implement

I chose to look into General Electric for this project because they are an energy supplier and multi-national company. Energy providers have a reputation as a money hungry companies that care about the bottom line more than people and the planet. It is easy for a person to assume that a corporation of GE’s size, money would be its only concern. What I learned was that GE has a public image problem more than a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) problem. The company has been working to make the people of the planet more Earth friendly by creating technology that has higher efficiency with fewer emissions and lower resource demands. GE has a well-established strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility. As a result of CSR the company

During 1919 one of the most reliable energy companies was assembled and they are known as Suncor. The location where they were created was Montreal, Quebec. Now their headquarters have been shifted to Calgary where all the decisions are made. They specialize in producing synthetic crude which is abundant in the Alberta Oil Sands. The masterminds behind this company are John Fergusion who is the chairman of the board and Steve Williams the CEO. Like every successful business Suncor has a mission which is to create energy for a better world. Their vision is to be trusted with valuable natural resources so they can produce a better social well-being to raise the economic standards, they also want to create a healthy environment for the present

The oil production in Canada has several significant issues that depict the destruction nature of the industry. These issues can be categorized as environmental, political, economic, and social. The environmental issues lead the pack; in that the environmental destruction associated with the industry is extensive. The environmental problems are climatic, land, water and air related (Best & Hoberg, 2015). Under climatic effect, studies indicate that the development of the tar sides has resulted to three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than in production of conventional oil. These environmental issues are caused by the composition of the tar sands. Unlike the convention oil, tar sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The process of separating the two results triples GHGs emissions when compared to conventional oil production (Koring, 2013).

       The Alberta oil sands are a large contributor to the pollution of the air and water. They're responsible for 9.3% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and 0.13% of global emissions. The oil sands already produce a large amount of air pollution but the emissions are

Case Background: - In transportation industry, one of the biggest challenge is how to deal with carbon dioxide emissions and how to reduce the energy. According to the Natural Resources Canada, one third of the greenhouse emission is because of transportation industry.

While the Alberta oil sands are critical to the Canadian economy, environmental policies must be strengthened in order to diminish the immense risk in the transportation of crude oil, the harming of human health, and the deterioration of the surrounding

Canada has the potential to be a “sustainable energy superpower” due to the vast amount of resources it contains. It has a large landmass and diversified geography which can be used to produce renewable energy from such resources; watermill, wind, biomass, solar, geothermal, and ocean energy. Renewable energy is energy obtained from natural resources that are able to be naturally replenished within a human lifespan (Natural Resource Canada, 2014). Currently, fossil fuel burning is the major source of energy in Canada and although it can be re-used, the process is so long that it is considered to be non-renewable. Also, fossil fuel burning for coal, natural gas, and petroleum gas pollutes the environment with greenhouse gases on a large scale, causing global warming. Non-renewable energy is taken from sources that re available on Earth in limited quantity, likely vanishing within fifty to sixty years from today (Conserve Energy Future, 2014). Thus, it is important for Canada to invest their money on resorting to more environmentally friendly and renewable ways to make electricity. Being a developed country, Canada has the financial stability to purchase the technologies over time in order to produce renewable energy. In addition, many organizations and the government have taken a step to educate the society about issues regarding energy usage, and to create programs which conserve energy for the future. In the future generations, Canada will be able to generate sufficient

II. The problem exists in northern Alberta, where large deposits of oil exist. The oil is costly to extract, but high prices have made this process viable in recent years. The environmental problems are created during the extraction process. The oil is removed from the sands by mixing it with hot water, skimming off the bitumen, and then centrifuging the bitumen (Oil Sands Centre, 2009). This process is energy-intensive, and byproducts end up in the atmosphere or in tailing ponds that threaten the local watershed. Sulfur dioxide in particular is a major pollutant that results from the process and causes acid rain. Nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds are also created in the

Along with greenhouse gases, other pollutants are released into the air during oil sands operations. These pollutants are harmful to ambient air quality and human health. In the Alberta oil sands, regional air quality is mainly impacted by the production of nitrogen dioxide and nitric oxide (NOx gases) (“Air Emissions,” 2015). NOx gases are primarily produced by fuel combustion in vehicles and react to form smog and acid rain (NOx gases in diesel car,” 2015). Consequently, these gases project a concern to the workers present that are mining the oil sands. This is because NOx gases overtime can lead to reduced lung function and breathing problems (NOx gases in diesel car,” 2015). Finally, these gases pose a threat to local wildlife and vegetation since they react to form acid rain in the atmosphere. The production of acid rain is harmful for the ecosystems present. This is especially true for aquatic ecosystems and overtime will lead to death of local wildlife. To conclude, the development of the oil sands is unfavorable due to the production of harmful gases. The development impacts global climate negatively due to increased greenhouse gas

Environmental factors that may influence the future of Suncor Energy and the implications on the employees and the Human Resources Department.

Exxon-Mobil is the world’s largest privately owned multi-national oil and gas company (Skjaerseth 2003). For companies as large as ExxonMobil, which possess considerable capital resources and are able to exert considerable power and influence, society is increasingly demanding that they behave in a socially responsible manner (Diara, Alilo, and McGuire 2004). There is a growing expectation that companies will adopt a business approach that illustrates responsibility to society above and beyond the economic function and legal performance of the firm (Gibbs 2009). This expectation can be understood as an implicit social contract. One of the underlying

On the same note, the energy revolution spoken of above brings forth another advance in the ongoing global climate situation. The nature of the Kyoto Protocol calls for nations to increase research and eventually semi-convert their energy usage to accommodate for cleaner energy. Products such as solar power, wind power, biomass, geothermal power, and hydropower are now widely being studying to create processes that use less coal, oil, and natural gas in production. Altogether the results have