The power of connection starts in the communities where we live and work, where the relationships we build provide the foundation for our success. We focus on driving community development through local skills-training opportunities, job creation and targeted community investment. This helps support the long-term growth of our local communities and fosters critical relationships. Our community investment strategy supports our business success, including by building local talent pipelines to power our organization and industry. We take a comprehensive approach to community engagement to build respectful, collaborative relationships and respond proactively to our communities’ needs and concerns. We strive to avoid and minimize negative community impacts and to address them promptly and thoroughly if they do occur.
Communities
- Our responsibility
- Communities
Our Social Performance Framework lays out our commitment to ongoing community investment, engagement and impact mitigation, and our related management processes. The framework outlines our approach to strategically align our community investments with areas of potential social risk, in consultation with community stakeholders. It also includes a commitment to proactively engage with communities across the life cycle of our operations, and to identify, manage and mitigate potential environmental and social risks in the communities where we operate, in accordance with applicable law. Additionally, the framework gives consideration to potential impacts on communities who may be historically underrepresented or economically disadvantaged. This includes considering impacts on minority communities and other relevant environmental justice issues. It also outlines our commitment to respect the human rights of all stakeholders, including Indigenous communities and groups that may be impacted by our operations, and to develop and maintain effective feedback mechanisms at project locations to understand and address community concerns.
Community development
We are committed to community development, aligning community investments with local needs and building connections with our neighbors in support of sustainable local economic development. Many of our community contributions represent multiyear commitments, further strengthening relationships and positive impacts. One priority of our community efforts is building the local workforce and supplier base, which benefits both our business and our communities.
Community engagement and impact mitigation
We regularly engage with local community members throughout the life cycle of our projects, from the earliest planning stages through permitting and construction, and on an ongoing basis once operations begin. We prioritize building relationships with stakeholders to understand and address potential concerns with our projects, such as light, noise, reduced air quality and commuter traffic. We seek to maintain an ongoing dialogue with residents to understand and address potential concerns, and we have formal feedback mechanisms in place. We follow location-specific stakeholder engagement plans at each of our LNG facilities.
Our Vice President of State Government and Community Affairs provides executive oversight and leadership on our stakeholder engagement, community investments, corporate giving and volunteer efforts. The VP and his team provide periodic updates to the CEO and members of senior management, and the Board at least annually. Board members receive updates on a range of community issues, including social risk assessments, community feedback and community investments.
Our stakeholder engagement approach focuses on listening to and engaging with local stakeholders regularly from early project development through all phases of permitting, construction and operations. We work with numerous stakeholder groups including residents, landowners, elected officials, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, civic groups, first responders, local media, Indigenous peoples and other community leaders.
We also conduct social risk assessments to better understand local needs and inform our community investment program.
In addition, we log and track community feedback to help ensure we address concerns in a timely and transparent manner. We empower our site managers to serve as the primary engagement leads in our communities. This helps break down the barriers of single-point communication, guiding and empowering experts and senior leaders within our facility to engage with their counterparts beyond our fence line. We also continue to track and respond to indirect feedback received from social media platforms on issues related to traffic, air quality, flaring and local job creation.
In 2022, we finalized the Cheniere Social Performance Framework to guide our community investments, partnerships, outreach and engagement and to enable us to measure the impact of our programs. This framework helps formalize our approach to important issues, including engagement with Indigenous communities.
Company procedures dictate requirements for charitable gifts or grants made on behalf of the company and its subsidiaries, including payments from the company, the Cheniere Foundation, the Employee Giving Fund and the Employee Matching Gifts program. The procedures provide guidance on the types of eligible organizations, anti-discrimination policies and requirements to ensure that organizations are recognized and/or registered charities and are financially solvent.
Our Social Performance Framework sets out our commitment to identify, manage and mitigate potential environmental and social risks in the communities where we operate. We assess risks and impacts on an ongoing basis to maintain our understanding of potential risks and update our mitigation efforts accordingly.
We have conducted social impact assessments for both our Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi LNG facilities. This included a reassessment of potential community impacts and risks, evaluation of the effectiveness of existing mitigations, community engagement and feedback processes, and the development of recommendations to address certain identified impacts and enhance management proficiency. We considered the potential for impacts on job creation, flaring, lighting, shipping and traffic. Our social risk and impact assessment process includes human rights considerations and is guided by international standards including the Equator Principles and the International Finance Corporation’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards.
Understanding our impacts helps inform and better align our community investment strategies with community needs. Our engagement with community stakeholders is a critical step in this process as it gives us insight on those needs and expectations. At each of our facilities, site managers have an opportunity to provide input regarding our social investment priorities, further tailoring our approach.