EO Blog

At the invitation of the school’s Eco-Reps program, EO President and co-founder David Poritz visited the University of Massachusetts, Amherst last week as part of Campus Sustainability Day last week. Following a screening of “Oil and Water” at the campus center, Poritz participated in a panel discussion on the university’s fossil fuel use, the Equitable Origin model for linking conscientious consumers to responsible producers, and the fossil fuel divestment movement on campus.

On October 15, 2014, at the headquarters of the Coordinator of the Indigenous Nationalities of the Amazon Basin – COICA (by its Spanish acronym) in Quito, Ecuador, Equitable Origin hosted a workshop and launch event for the online consultation tool and comment period on the EO100™ Standard.

Equitable Origin's Director of Communications Josh Garrett was at Harvard Business School (HBS) last weekend to attend the 2014 Energy Symposium. The symposium, organized by the HBS Energy and Environment Club, is an annual event that brings together leaders in technology, academia, business, investing, and corporate responsibility to discuss the latest trends in the energy world and how to move forward responsibly in a world of growing energy demand.

As part of the revision process of the EO100™ Standard, Equitable Origin has launched a new online public consultation tool to solicit feedback and hear what you have to say. This crowdsourcing effort is an extension of Equitable Origin’s core commitment to multistakeholder engagement, a cornerstone of Equitable Origin’s approach to credible standard setting.

"Oil and Water" continued to impress at the Northampton International Film Festival last weekend. The film's co-directors Laurel Spellman Smith and Francine Strickwerda took home both the jury prize and audience prize for Best Documentary from the festival.

After the series of First Readings events, David Poritz continued his visit at Brown with a talk and discussion with students visiting the university as part of the Botín Scholars program hosted by the Watson Institute for International Studies.

David Poritz returned to his alma mater Brown University last week as part of a weeklong series of events and discussions on the film "Oil and Water,” the documentary directed by Laurel Spellman Smith and Francine Strickwerda that traces the founding of Equitable Origin.

We need your feedback on the EO100™ Standard to help us ensure it reflects current industry best practices and stakeholder expectations on social, environmental, and ethical performance of oil and gas operations.

Our online consultation tool is available for anyone to submit comments for a period of 60 days from October 6 to December 5, 2014. A second public consultation will be held next year.

Though intervention in Syria and climate change demonstrations dominated headlines last week during the UN General Assembly, another significant event was also underway, the first UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, inaugurated by Evo Morales and Ban Ki-moon.

As part of our ongoing series of perspectives on the world's first certified-responsible oil production site, we asked Valeria Santos, Sustainability Lead for Pacific Rubiales Energy, to share her thoughts on what the certification means for her company and the oil industry at large, and her response follows.