The Governance Of Acceptability

Abstract The Tempa Rossa oil field is located in the heart of Basilicata, an agricultural region in the south of Italy, which inhabitants belong to a rural culture set in its ways. The project area lies in the middle of three protected areas (national and regional parks), with consequent challenges in terms of biodiversity conservation and environment protection. To ensure acceptability of Tempa Rossa project, Total E&P Italia - as a responsible operator of an O&G project - considered that structuring the internal governance of all processes impacting the stakeholders and the territory is a key success factor. More specifically, Total E&P Italia considered necessary to implement an internal process for updating and sharing the activities in real time, in order to prevent and manage problems linked to the social and environmental impact on different stakeholders. To achieve such objectives, Total E&P Italia set up two internal committees. The Acceptability Technical Group (ATG) ensures that Total E&P Italia guidelines and policies are applied in operational activities and identifies and anticipates potential environmental/social issues in such activities. This is the forum for the representatives of the different Total E&P Italia departments, to discuss and find concrete solutions to the identified problems in order to avoid/reduce "non technical risks" (i.e. suspension of operations, lawsuits, etc.). The mitigation measures plan set in place by the ATG is submitted to the second committee (ASC) for validation. The ASC (Acceptability Steering Committee) is the main internal body in charge of decision-making on environmental/social matters, where strategies are defined and decisions on actions/measures proposed by ATG are taken.