SUSTAINABILITY

Biodiversity and Ecosystems

The international scientific research on sustainable development has recently brought the attention on a more complex level of interaction between man’s activities and the ecosystems where they are carried out.

The Oil&Gas sector was among the first to stir toward a more systematic approach to the territory, capable of highlighting risks and opportunities connected to a sustainable management of resources. This means for Eni, to minimize the potential negative impacts of its entire operational cycle and maximize the positive contributions to biodiversity and ecosystem services protection.

Ecosystems and Biodiversity WG
The projects

Eni has been very active in all these years, so far as to earn, for 2010, the position of chair of the IPIECA’s Biodiversity Working Group. Furthermore, the projects regarding the study, monitoring and mitigation of the impact on biodiversity from operational activities continued in 2009, also in order to prearrange specific tools and programs applied to all Company activities, following EBI’s guidelines (Energy and Biodiversity Initiative).

Since 2008 Eni has joined Proteus 2012, an initiative promoted by UNEP-WCMC that aims at developing a comprehensive database of information on protected areas with rich biodiversity, by using the different datasets and the available information.
In 2009, the information provided by the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) was significantly improved, and the Marine WDPA platform was launched, which groups the marine protected areas with dedicated details and attributes.

At the same time of its commitment for the preservation of biodiversity and the evaluation of the interaction between the operations and the biodiversity rich areas, Eni started analyzing how it could assess and protect the most complex ecosystemic functions and define their relation with the activities of the energy sector. Within this ambit, since 2009 Eni has been part of the Environmental Services, Tools & Markets Working Group promoted by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) which is, to this date, the foremost initiative for enterprises for a comparison and assessment of the most advanced tools and methods for the assessment of ecosystemic services during the entire lifespan of the plants.

Furthermore, Eni joined the EVI road tester project supported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, to carry out a test for a preliminary assessment of the ecosystemic services; the test will be carried out with the advice of IUCN, the world organization for conservation of biodiversity, with which Eni has been collaborating since 2008.

All these initiatives are coordinated by a working group that includes Eni and the Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation.

Main projects for the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity

Project name	Geographical area	Total investment (thousand of Euros)	Advancement	Partners/Stakeholders involved
AgriBiodiversity (ABD) Phase II	Val d’Agri (Italy)	455		University of Basilicata, ABD Monitoring
Biodiversity Risk Assessment in the Nikaitchuq Block	Alaska (USA)	200		FFI (Fauna & Flora International)
Villano BioDiversity (VBD)	Ecuador	2,070		Pontificia Universidad Católica of Ecuador, FFI (Fauna & Flora International)
BioSea II	Norway	1,562		Total, IRIS (International Research Institute of Stavanger)
Arctic Sea BioDiversity (ASBD)	Norway	2,518		Akvaplan-Niva, FFI, Arctos Group
Joint Industry Programme “E&P Sound & Marine Life‘	All offshore sites	2,100		BG Group, BHP Billiton, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, ExxonMobil, International Association of Geophysical Contractors, Santos, Statoli-Hydro, Woodside, OGP
Monitoring of endemic species of the Caspian Sea	Kazakhstan	3,448		Kazakhstan Research & Production Center of the Fish Industry, U.S. Pew Institute for Ocean Science, CaspiEcology, Nedra, KazEcoProject, Caspian International Seal Survey, University of Leeds/Kazakh Agency of Applied Ecology (KAPE/KAAE)