Safeguarding biodiversity

Minimizing our impact on plants, animals, soil, and water

We've developed a risk-based procedure for creating ecosystem and biodiversity management plans to minimize, mitigate, and manage ecosystem and biodiversity impacts.

We seek to protect sensitive wildlife areas, flora and fauna, ecosystems, and conservation areas. Our management plans are designed to prevent the introduction of invasive species and establish conditions to facilitate the rehabilitation or restoration of land areas impacted by Schlumberger activities. They also detail any local regulations that require reporting on ecosystem and biodiversity management activities; these are periodically reviewed to ensure applicability.

Risk assessments are performed before initiating any business activities, to assess potential impacts of current and planned activities on biodiversity. This is done to mitigate and monitor impacts throughout the contract life cycle. Schlumberger facilities and operations are designed to minimize the physical footprint and reduce potential environmental impacts.

Our biodiversity actions focus mainly on four areas.

Protecting Wildlife

We take measures to avoid interactions with wildlife and hence prevent potential health and safety incidents associated with our activities and operations. Activities are planned to avoid disruption of wildlife movements and habitats.

Land Contamination Prevention and Management

Conducting environmental assessments prior to acquisition and entry of assets enables evaluating soil, water bodies, and other environmentally sensitive receptors as part of the due diligence process. Minimum setback distances or restrictions are put in place for activity infrastructure in proximity to flood-prone areas, watercourses, wetlands, and individual and public water supplies.

Land Rehabilitation and Restoration

We create plans to rehabilitate and restore land associated with our assets and infrastructure, either to the original condition of the site prior to our activities or to a condition suitable for the land’s next intended use. Our ecosystem and biodiversity risk management processes and our environmental spill and emergency response procedures set forth that all required remediation and restoration activities occur concurrently with our operations, both at Schlumberger facilities and at our customers’ worksites.

Decommissioning and Abandonment

Worksites that show visible signs of impact by hydrocarbon-related activities or are known sites of previous spills and releases are remediated, and soil samples are tested to prove that the soil has been returned to original conditions. Reports are provided to the local regulatory authority, if applicable.

Local impact

Schlumberger volunteer planting fruit trees in India.

In cooperation with a local nonprofit, employee volunteers helped plant 2,000 fruit trees on farmers’ lands near Pune, India, in 2020, under the rural development program.

Volunteers creating a butterfly habitat at a Schlumberger facility in Oklahoma.

Employees at our Learning Center in Oklahoma have created a butterfly habitat at the facility to support nature’s pollinators, whose habitats are under threat in North America.

Schlumberger volunteer cleaning a beach in Senegal, Africa.

In Senegal, Schlumberger volunteers collected more than 600 kg of plastic waste from one beach, in collaboration with a local public waste disposal company that recycled the waste.