Impact of Sustainable Practices on Project Performance in the Oil and Gas Industry

1.0 Introduction

The chosen topic within managerial decision-making for this study is the impact of sustainable practices on project performance in the oil and gas industry. This topic is significant to the current business environment in the modern world. Every organization is usually concerned with sustainability and environmental stewardship to remain relevant and productive within the industry of operation. In the context of oil and gas companies with large environmental footprints, the organizations within this industry are under pressure to adopt sustainable practices as climate change and natural resource depletion become more critical (Ahmad et al., 2016). The oil and gas industry ensures worldwide energy supplies but also emits greenhouse gases and degrades the environment (UCLA, 2023). This is a critical aspect to consider in order to retain its sustainability within the industry. Thus, there is a need for the industry to rethink its operational plans profoundly and adopt sustainable methods to reduce environmental impacts. Understanding how sustainable practices affect project performance in this industry is crucial for environmental and business sustainability.

2.0 Methodology

This structured research literature study uses a systematic search technique to find academic material on how sustainable practices affect oil and gas project performance. Structure research is employed to ensure that reputable and relevant sources are discovered to offer relevant insights related to managerial decision-making in the old industry and ensure sustainability and reliance within organizations operating within this industry (Anis & Siddiqui, 2015).

2.1 Search Strategy

For the purpose of identifying a wide range of sources for this research, credible academic resources were searched in March 2024. Various databases were selected for their extensive coverage of sustainability, project management, and the oil and gas industry.

• ScienceDirect (Elsevier)
• Scopus (Elsevier)
• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar
• Emerald

A combination of main words and subject subheadings was utilized to maximize the extraction of relevant and credible studies while at the same time maintaining focus on the key target of the research. The following key terms and their synonyms were incorporated into the search strings:

• Sustainable practices or sustainability in the oil and gas industry
• Project performance or project management
• Oil and gas industry or energy sector
• United Arab Emirates, or UAE

Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) were utilized to narrow down the search into more specific information relevant to the research and make sure that there is a balance between comprehensiveness and focus (UCLA, 2023). For example, a common search string might be:

“(sustainable practices OR sustainability in the oil and gas industry) AND (project performance OR project management) AND (oil and gas industry OR energy sector) AND (United Arab Emirates OR UAE).”

2.2 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Studies were included based on the following criteria to ensure a high level of academic rigor and relevance to the research question:

• Inclusion Criteria:
  • Peer-reviewed academic journal articles published in English within the past five years (2019–2024).
  • Empirical studies investigating the impact of sustainable practices on project performance in the oil and gas industry.
  • Studies focus on the UAE or other relevant oil and gas industry regions.
• Exclusion Criteria:
  • Non-empirical studies (e.g., editorials, commentaries, book reviews).
  • Studies published in non-academic sources (e.g., business magazines, websites).
  • Studies are not written in English.

2.3 Selection Process

To organize and deduplicate search results from each database, they were exported and uploaded to RefWorks. Duplicates were eliminated. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to filter titles and abstracts. After initial screening, relevant studies were reviewed in full-text to confirm they satisfied all criteria and addressed the study topic.

The references will list organized literature review articles with an asterisk (*). References will list other papers utilized in the debate.

3.0 Analysis and Synthesis

3.1 Key Findings from the Literature

The literature review on the impact of sustainable practices on project performance in the oil and gas industry reveals several key findings:

1. Importance of Sustainable Practices: The research highlights that environmental concerns, regulatory demands, and stakeholder expectations are driving sustainable practices in the oil and gas business. Sustainability is urgent due to the industry’s large greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact (Anis & Siddiqui, 2015). Particularly, the research emphasizes the need to look at strategic means that may reduce gas emissions and embrace practices that are environmentally friendly.
2. Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Framework: Normally, the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach is utilized to evaluate oil and gas sustainability, including economic, social, and environmental considerations. These priorities are difficult to balance, especially in manufacturing and regulatory contexts (Anis & Siddiqui, 2015). The research emphasizes that oil companies should invest hugely in managerial decisions that ensure a balance between manufacturing and regulatory frameworks.
3. Institutional PrTheures: The research reveals that institutional pressures, notably normative, relational and coercive, are significant influencers of the industry’s sustainable practices. This implies that coercive policies may be applicable in encouraging sustainable behaviors within a project, however, their effect on innovation is debatable.
4. Project Sustainability Project: Project sustainability is a very critical aspect for every organization, especially in addressing social, economic and environmental factors facilitating the organization’s long-term goals and, at the same time, reducing any harm that may come as a result of violating environmental protection regulations.
5. Environmental Impacts: Normally, the offshore and onshore oil and gas industries have serious implications for the environment (US EPA, 2021). Therefore, technology becomes imperative in assessing and managing excavating, drilling and sharing resource extraction-related risks.
6. Circular Economy Structure: The research points out that a circular economy framework in oil and gas projects, repairing, recycling and reusing materials are key factors managers should focus on while making decisions to drive the company towards accomplishing sustainable goals (US EPA, 2021).

3.2 Contribution to Managerial Decision-Making

The findings discovered within the underlying literature add to managerial decision-making in various ways:

1. Strategic Planning: Understanding sustainable practices and institutional forces aids oil and gas strategic planning. To meet long-term corporate goals, decision-makers can prioritize sustainability activities and allocate resources.
2. Risk Management: Managers can control risk by recognizing environmental risks for environmental activities. Companies can reduce environmental impacts and long-term risks by adopting sustainable and circular economy practices.
3. Stakeholder Engagement: Understanding stakeholder sustainability expectations improves investor, regulator, and community interactions. Management can boost brand reputation and stakeholder confidence with sustainability efforts (Basile et al., 2021).
4. Innovation and Technology Adoption: Identifying environmental assessment and mitigation technology helps project managers innovate. Managers can increase project sustainability with spatial analysis, vulnerability assessments, and species-based modeling.

By embracing these above key findings, managers in the oil and gas industry are able to make informed decisions that contribute to long-term sustainability and create a strong foundation for business success.

3.3 Methodologies and Approaches Impact

The methodologies and approaches employed in the reviewed studies influence the findings and conclusions drawn in this field.

1. Integrative Sustainability Frameworks: Integrative sustainability framework studies show oil and gas sustainability drivers and limits. This approach addresses internal and external contextual factors affecting sustainability initiatives (Van Dover et al., 2014).
2. Case Studies and Thematic Analysis: Many project management sustainability studies include case studies and topic analysis (Woodside, 2017). Their contextualized insights into real-world efforts assist in understanding implementation challenges and results.
3. Ethical Considerations: Research methods that incorporate ethical issues enable ethical study conduct. Researchers can improve credibility and validity by prioritizing ethics.
4. Qualitative Exploratory Research: Researching sustainable project management methods utilizing qualitative exploratory methods is versatile and deep. Researchers can gather extensive data through interviews, observations, and document analysis to comprehend complicated events (Van Dover et al., 2014).

Overall, the research studies’ methods help managers make decisions on sustainable practices’ effects on oil and gas project performance.

4.0 Critical Evaluation

4.1 Strengths and Limitations of Current Research

Research Design: The fact that the current research makes use of both qualitative and quantitative methods demonstrates its strength. Ahmad et al. (2016) present integrated sustainability frameworks for the oil and gas industry, revealing internal and external contextual aspects affecting sustainable practices. Cherepovitsyn et al. (2020) use case studies to examine sustainability goals in Arctic oil and gas projects, showing how project management values can improve long-term efficiency. Despite the variety of research approaches, some lack methodological rigor, especially in sample size and data gathering. Nasrollahi et al. (2020) suggest more research to confirm claims about coercive drivers’ effects on sustainable practices, citing potential limits in their analysis.

Sample Size and Generalizability: Several studies, including Michaelides et al. (2014), which focus on large-scale oil and gas projects in Nigeria, have huge sample sizes. These studies illuminate industry sustainability drivers. Regional or sector-specific circumstances may restrict the findings’ generalizability. Studies that only cover the UAE or its regions may not fully capture the global oil and gas industry’s difficulties and potential (BNC., 2022b). While case studies are useful for in-depth examination, they may limit your results’ applicability.

3.2 Gaps in the literature

Methodological Rigor: Despite the wide range of research on sustainable oil and gas activities, methodological rigor is lacking. Some research uses case studies or qualitative analyses, which are useful for understanding specific circumstances but are not generalizable (Thomas, 2010). More longitudinal studies and large-scale quantitative evaluations are needed to offer extensive frameworks to comprehensively understand sustainable practices and their long-term impact on the success of the project.

Regional and Sector-Specific Focus: Most oil and gas researches are based on offshore drilling or shale resource extraction; these researches only give insights on local issues but fail to give extensive insights that cover the entire industry, which may be restricted to evaluating this specific industry (BNC., 2022b). It is, therefore, important for future studies to apply a comprehensive approach that covers the evaluation of the interdependence of the gas and oil industry sectors and geographies to bridge this gap.

Evaluation of Coercive and Non-Coercive Pressures: The underlying research offers conflicting findings regarding various coercive and non-coercive pressures that usually impact the sustainability of the oil and gas industry. Some researchers assert that coercive policymaking results in innovations and the sustainability of the industry. Other research findings reveal that the policymaker’s coercive serves as a significant barrier to any organizations sustainability and growth initiatives (Basile et al., 2021). This shows that there is a need for specific research that reconciles these conflicting insights and comes up with common findings.

4.3 Synthesis of Key Findings

Environmental Impact and Sustainability: The research puts significant emphasis on the need for environmental protection and sustainability in the oil and gas industry. For example, Rentizelas et al. (2018) discuss and demonstrate the stainable practices’ benefits and disadvantages and the need to ensure a balance of environmental protection and economic growth

discuss sustainable practices’ pros and cons and the necessity to balance economic growth and environmental protection. This synthesis unfolds the various ways in which economic, social, and environmental aspects impact industry project success.

Role of Coercive and Non-Coercive Pressures: Another significant issue is how coercive and non-coercive pressures drive sustainability. Some research contends that regulation frameworks serve an instrumental role in fueling the industry’s sustainability, particularly via the coercive pressure it asserts. However, in the same matter, other studies suggest that these regulation coercive pressures serve as drawbacks, as they foster complexity to the industry progress (BNC Network, 2023). This shows a gap in understanding the role of regulatory frameworks. Thus, it is important to understand these frameworks for successful operations within the organization.

Integrated Approaches to Sustainability: Most of the research underscores that Integrated sustainability calls for relating organizational capabilities to dealing with external environmental factors. Ahmad et al. (2016) and others’ frameworks demonstrate how operationalizing resources can increase strategic capabilities to achieve performance objectives. This integrated approach suggests a shift toward holistic and systemic oil and gas sustainability thinking.

4.4 Research Gaps and Future Directions

Sustainable practices and project performance research in the oil and gas industry have made progress, but some gaps remain, requiring further study. Future studies should address these shortcomings to improve knowledge and managerial decision-making.

1. Longitudinal Studies: Longitudinal studies on sustainable practices and oil and gas project performance are scarce. To track sustainable initiatives and their long-term implications for project outcomes, future research should use longitudinal methods (BNC., 2023). Researchers can use longitudinal studies to uncover causal links, trends, and durability of sustainability intervention, which benefits practitioners and policymakers (Van Dover et al., 2014).
2. Comparative Analyses Across Regions: Many oil and gas studies focus on specific locations or industries, limiting generalizability (Rentizelas et al., 2018). A future study could compare sustainable practices and project success across locations and sectors (Brittingham et al., 2014). Researchers can uncover commonalities, inequalities, and best practices by comparing contexts and promoting cross-regional learning and information transfer. Comparative analysis helps explain the complex dynamics affecting oil and gas sustainability.
3. Quantitative Assessments of Regulatory Impact: Coercive and non-coercive forces affect sustainable behaviors, although regulatory impact is not quantified. Future research should use rigorous quantitative methods to assess regulatory frameworks’ sustainability benefits in the oil and gas industry (Rodhi et al., 2017). Researchers can educate policy and industry practices by quantifying regulatory interventions’ effects on project performance measures, including cost, schedule, and environmental compliance.
4. Integration of Ethical Considerations: Sustainability and project success within the oil and gas industry depend on ethics. Research on sustainability rarely considers ethics. Future research should hugely pay attention to ethical frameworks and concerns to holistically analyze sustainable practices’ ethical impacts (Rodhi et al., 2017). Researchers can use ethical analyses to help practitioners and policymakers comprehend sustainable decision-making’s ethical challenges, trade-offs, and moral obligations.

The various methodologies and approaches that may be quite effective in addressing the identified future directions involve:

• Longitudinal Studies: Researchers may strategically monitor project performance and behaviours over a certain period of time through the utilization of longitudinal research approaches. Specifically, this may involve surveys, questionnaires, archival data analyses, and other qualitative approaches such as interviews. Perhaps pay attention to the targeted groups, such as managers, to equip them with critical knowledge of complex events within their management line over time.
• Cross-Regional Comparative Analyses: Case studies and cross-sectional surveys are quite instrumental towards empowering managers within oil and gas companies to make substantial comparisons across industries and geographies and develop informed decisions that would drive the company’s success (Raut et al., 2017). The critical application of mixed method approaches enables researchers to incorporate, discover trends and form significant conclusions regarding sustainable practices which are effective within various contexts.
• Quantitative Evaluations of Regulatory Effects: Various methods, such as statistical analysis, simulation, and modelling, can be applied to shed light on various ways through which regulatory frameworks affect the project performance metrics (Raut et al., 2017). Researchers may be able to evaluate the regulatory intervention sustainability causal connections and outcomes using statistical models and massive datasets.
• Ethical Framework Integration: Various aspects such as impact evaluations, stakeholders’ debates, and ethical audits are very significant in enabling sustainability by empowering researchers to incorporate ethics (Raut et al., 2017). Ethical discourse analysis and ethical problem scenarios illuminate sustainable decision-making ethics and educate ethical standards and suggestions.

5.0 Conclusion

The literature study emphasizes the need for sustainable oil and gas operations due to environmental concerns, regulatory pressures, and stakeholder expectations. Integrating insights from diverse approaches and frameworks shows that sustainable practices reduce environmental impacts and improve project performance. However, research technique and regional emphasis gaps require longitudinal designs, comparison analysis across regions, quantitative regulatory impact assessments, and ethical concerns in future studies. These findings highlight the significance of strategic planning, risk management, stakeholder engagement, and innovation adoption for oil and gas practitioners to navigate sustainability and assure long-term corporate sustainability.

References

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