A conversation with Steve Williams, Suncor's chief operating officer

Our stakeholders have asked how the recent market turmoil would affect Suncor's long-standing commitment to a “triple bottom line” vision of sustainable development. Suncor COO Steve Williams—the company's point man on providing safe, reliable, cost-effective and environmentally responsible operations—provides some answers.

In response to the global economic crisis, Suncor suspended its major growth projects and said it would focus on achieving excellence in its base operations. What exactly does that mean?

WILLIAMS: For Suncor's 6,800 employees, the term “operational excellence” is now something of a mantra. Improving reliability and performance—including environmental performance—has always been an important goal for us. But in the current economic climate, it's become Suncor's top priority.

We've had to make some difficult decisions. Given the challenging times, we knew we couldn't sustain the kind of growth Suncor had experienced over the past decade. We remain committed to growth—but the timetable has changed. In the meantime, we have a real opportunity to improve every aspect of our existing businesses. And that, in a nutshell, is what operational excellence is all about.

Every day, our employees are faced with choices about how they operate, what kinds of strategies make sense, what processes are best to follow, what kinds of products and services are important enough to invest in. The choices they make affect the quality of their own work—and can have a chain reaction across the company. Operational excellence is about understanding that connection—and ensuring everything each of us does contributes to improving the overall performance of the company, economically, environmentally and socially.

But isn't this really about cutting costs and saving Suncor money?

WILLIAMS: We always need to watch our spending, but this isn't just about straight costs. It's about productivity—how much economic value we're creating for the dollars we spend. A large industrial operation like an oil sands project has a lot of fixed costs and when we have operational upsets, we end up with both higher costs to get it fixed and a lower economic output in terms of lost production. So we lose on both sides. Focusing on safe and reliable operations—and watching how we're spending—is one way to achieve both lower costs and higher productivity.

But it still sounds like it's about the financial bottom line. What does operational excellence have to do with Suncor's commitment to sustainable energy development?

WILLIAMS: Well, let's think about the original vision of sustainable development Suncor adopted in the early 1990s. We talked about a “triple bottom line.” We said energy should be developed in a way that generates economic growth, promotes social well-being and protects the environment.

I've already talked about the economic upside of operational excellence. But there's also a very real environmental payoff. Unplanned outages and system breakdowns can mean reduced energy efficiency, more emissions from flaring and bottlenecks in water management and recycling. Avoiding these kinds of setbacks drives improvements in every area of environmental performance.

Next, consider the social side. During the recent period of rapid growth across our industry, the communities where we operate faced tremendous pressures. Infrastructure shortfalls, limited health services, labour shortages—you name it. The economic climate is now essentially controlling the pace of oil sands growth. We have the opportunity to work more closely with our communities and stakeholders to catch up and maybe even get ahead of those pressure points. In that way, we could be better prepared when the time comes to up the pace of growth.

This is why we've taken such a holistic approach to defining operational excellence. We've said it's based on four main pillars: (1) reliability, (2) environmental excellence and sustainability, (3) people—including our employees and the communities in which they live and work, and (4) personal and process safety management—including our goal of eliminating workplace injuries.

In addition to improving internal operational performance, are there actions beyond Suncor's plant gates that could make oil sands development more sustainable?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. For example, Suncor is a founding member and co-chair of the recently established Oil Sands Leadership Initiative (OSLI). It's a group of six like-minded companies that are determined to make tangible advances in improving the environmental, social and economic performance of this industry.

In addition to sharing best practices, what's important about OSLI is that its members are philosophically and financially committed to setting higher performance standards and bringing together the best people, resources and technologies to meet those standards. Among the projects OSLI is currently working on are improvements to energy efficiency and carbon management, community education and the establishment of a specific land stewardship conservation area in the Wood Buffalo region of northern Alberta.

We realize our industry is under scrutiny as never before. We believe this kind of collaborative action by like-minded companies is our best opportunity to show that sustainable development is more than a catchphrase—it's the best possible path forward.