We are committed to responsibly managing our environmental impacts. Building collaborative connections is key to our approach. This includes working across internal functional teams and with our suppliers to identify opportunities to improve performance, as well as fostering relationships with community organizations to support the conservation and restoration of local ecosystems. Our commitment to environmental stewardship is supported by our Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) Policy and by our comprehensive environmental management system (EMS), which is aligned with the ISO 14001 EMS standard. Our commitment includes the proactive identification and management of environmental risks and opportunities across the life cycle of our operations, as well as appropriate engagement with internal and external stakeholders on environmental issues.
Environment
- Our responsibility
- Environment
Air quality
We actively work to limit our criteria emissions and impacts on local air quality. We also support local air quality monitoring and awareness programs.
Biodiversity
We are committed to minimizing our impact on biodiversity, recognizing that the construction of our LNG terminals and natural gas pipelines may affect ecosystems. Additionally, we voluntarily contribute to biodiversity protection projects near our operational areas.
Water management
Cheniere strives to avoid or minimize adverse environmental impacts associated with water use, including impacts related to water quality and quantity of water used. We carefully manage any wastewater generated by our operations that contains small amounts of potentially hazardous pollutants.
Waste management
Each facility develops, follows and regularly updates waste management plans that include carefully labeling, managing and disposing of hazardous and nonhazardous waste at permitted treatment, storage and disposal facilities. We develop waste minimization plans, which are required by regulatory agencies and are reviewed every year to help us identify and reduce the quantity and toxicity of the waste and increase recycling when economically feasible.
As outlined in our HSE Policy, Cheniere is committed to conducting business in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. This commitment is operationalized into our daily work through environmental standards and an EMS, both of which are integrated into the Cheniere Integrated Management System (CIMS).
Executive management and Board oversight
As outlined in these standards, our executive leadership team oversees and has accountability for environmental issues. Our Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer is accountable for internal compliance with this policy.
To maximize the rigor of our management approach, we have implemented a cross-functional and collaborative executive management team for environmental risk and performance oversight. The Vice President of Environmental and Regulatory Projects is responsible for overseeing our environmental performance and for the execution of our business strategy in a way that is consistent with our HSE Policy, as well as our vision and core values. The Vice President of Health, Safety and Environmental manages HSE compliance and risk across the business. Our Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer oversees HSE management, biodiversity and land impacts, air quality, effluents and waste.
Our Board of Directors reviews these issues regularly and receives updates on a selection of environmental performance metrics quarterly.
Environmental management system
Our EMS, which is aligned with the ISO 14001 environmental management system standard, supports the implementation of our HSE Policy. The EMS outlines roles, responsibilities and accountability for environmental management; corporate- and site-level standards for managing environmental issues; our procedures for regular environmental risk and aspects assessments; processes for developing corrective actions to stimulate continuous improvement; and our internal training and communication requirements.
We conduct annual reviews of environmental impacts, risks and opportunities associated with our operations and we develop relevant follow-up actions to eliminate, avoid or mitigate impacts. This assessment feeds into larger enterprise-wide compliance and risk assessments. We follow protocols to include stakeholder views in our assessments and communicate with them on environmental issues, including through our site environmental impact assessments, community impact and risk assessments, and messaging systems designed to inform local residents about our operations.
We assess compliance with environmental management standards and processes through regular assurance assessments and audits. Assurance targets are determined annually using a risk-based approach and can include both internal and third-party assessments. We prioritize and track corrective actions through completion, and lessons learned are shared across the wider organization.
Our EMS applies to contractors, contingent and temporary workers, and consultants working on our sites, as well as our own employees. We also require suppliers to undergo a prequalification process that establishes our expectations for compliance with applicable labor and HSE laws and standards, including human-rights-related standards.
Looking forward, we will continue to enhance implementation of our EMS through the development of expanded key performance indicators and goals. We have also transitioned our EMS into the CIMS, an enterprise-wide system for coordinating the development and implementation of standards and procedures focused on improving consistency and effectiveness of our management approaches, improving accountability and fostering continuous improvement.