Community Grievance Mechanisms

Why is this important?

OMV Petrom Group’s Grievance Management Process is part of the Compliance Management System, which ensures compliance with applicable legal provisions and internal regulations in order to reduce non-compliance risks and/or financial consequences for the company, as well as to improve the efficiency of dialogue with stakeholders and communities.

An effective grievance mechanism should provide a transparent, credible and equitable process to all parties. A good grievances management process helps to build trust as part of the wider community relations activities and contributes to the overall success of the OMV Petrom Group’s social performance. The process establishes how the managers of the specialized departments within the Organizational Units (OU) handle the grievances, respectively receiving, registering, reviewing, establishing measures, resolving grievances, as well as transmitting the responses in time.

Our commitment

Assess Community Grievance Mechanisms of all sites against UN Effectiveness Criteria by 2025.

We measure

We register the number of Grievances, by category.

We measure the number of received grievances vs. number of resolved grievances.

We act

We address all concerns effectively, in a transparent and easy to follow process and in a timely manner.

We check

We investigate all grievances and offer a channel to resolve them in a non-judicial manner and, depending on the case, access to remedy for community members.

Our Compliance Department audits the data in the database to ensure the information accuracy and, where applicable, makes recommendations for improvement.

The due dime for resolving a grievance is also closely monitored.

We train

All appointed employees in charge with grievance management are trained by Compliance Department and they constantly receive support and guidance.

Our key actions on Community Grievance Mechanisms

Our planned actions target a stronger commitment to responding and resolving grievances, as well as a better understanding of our communities’ concerns.

 

In 2021, we worked specifically on continuing the implementation of the new standard as well as the new platform for registration of the grievances, Service Now. To provide traceability and predictability in the management of grievances, the new Community Grievance Mechanism (CGM) database was created and implemented. In addition, the Petrobrazi Refinery increased its external outreach to local communities by upgrading the call center service, available 24/7, which promotes the communication between the refinery and any stakeholder interested finding answers to their questions or submitting a complaint. Over the past years, CGM procedures of the Petrobrazi Refinery and Upstream Division were reviewed and adjusted to the new company community grievance management standard.

Results (KPI, other indicators)

In 2021, we registered a total of 786 grievances related to society, human rights and environmental issues, out of which 570 were resolved. We also resolved a number of 67 remaining grievances from the previous year. Most of them (412) were related to social impacts generated by our operations and 374 grievances were related to environmental impacts (of which 294 were related to land contamination).

Progress

In 2021, the grievance resolution rate was 73%, in the same range as in previous years.

Outlook

For 2022, we plan a detailed assessment in OMV Petrom E&P to evaluate the root causes of grievances and implement appropriate measures to reduce their number.

The call center service will continue also in 2022 and an evaluation after one year from the implementation is also planned.