The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20230919183925/https://www.elsevierinfo.com/issues

U.N.-BASED GRIEVANCE MECHANISM: ELSEVIER

Issues and Concerns

Elsevier provides data, analytics and information that facilitate fossil fuel exploration and development around the world, continuing activity long associated with severe climate-related human rights harms. The company has taken steps to remove public acknowledgement of this activity while indicating it is acting "in line" with the science, opting to communicate inaccurate sustainability claims and those of industry partners and customers.

Fossil fuel expansion

Since at least 2011, scientists have warned that the world had discovered more fossil fuels than can safely be burned. By 2021, Elsevier and its parent company RELX were aware that new fossil fuel projects were incompatible with the Paris warming target—and that most known reserves must stay in the ground to ensure a safe transition and healthy planet. Yet, as it's done for decades, Elsevier assists the fossil fuel industry's development of new resources, activity the UN considers a violation of UNGP human rights commitments.

Elsevier publications—some staffed by employees of Exxon, Chevron, Aramco, and other expanding oil majors—provide data and technical resources that enable customers to analyze resource potential, inform exploration, and develop new reservoirs in the remaining frontiers for oil and gas exploration. With the majority of the $11.5 billion/year spent on publishing coming from public funding, Elsevier—which publishes the largest proportion of studies—is accepting publicly generated funds to provide the oil and gas industry with information being used to severely undermine the planet’s health.

Elsevier R&D offers most Fortune 500 oil and gas companies resources and tools to scale up operations, respond to new opportunities, and increase exploration successes.

RELX exhibitions provide valuable resources for coal company customers and partners that are still expanding development of unburnable coal and refusing to decarbonize.

Financial support for political leaders in the United States who aim to block effective climate action and deny climate change. Said one recipient: "There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth."

"An independent external Climate Advisory Board...convenes distinguished experts to guide and prioritize our actions."

—Rachel Martin,
Global Director of Sustainability, Elsevier

"It is well known that proven fossil fuel reserves are much higher than we can emit to meet the Paris goals."

—Arnold Tukker,
Elsevier External Climate Board member

"The fossil fuel industries need to be shut down as soon as possible."

—Joyashree Roy,
Elsevier External Climate Board member

Industry misinformation

As it maintains partners and customers whose business plans are a deep threat to human well-being, Elsevier is assisting an industry committed to hydrocarbon expansion by misleading the public about the misalignment of these plans with what's required to maintain a livable planet—such as an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions this decade and no new fossil fuel projects. Rather than sounding the alarm about this industry, Elsevier spreads misconceptions that help the company and the industry it serves avoid accountability.

'Net zero' deceptions
'Energy companies' myth
Coal industry 'transition'
Oil industry 'transition'
Petrostate propaganda
Carbon capture 'solutions'
Voluntary initiatives

"[It's] an industry that has a well-documented history of willingly misleading the public and capturing regulators to extend their profitability. It is an industry that has already contributed to the suffering of many millions of people across the planet. It is an industry that has repeatedly stood in the way of technical progress towards a cleaner, better world. This is the industry Elsevier decided to work with while talking about the importance of sustainability."

—Paul Behrens, Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Change, Leiden University, and Speaker at Elsevier's 2021 SUSTAIN Festival

"Fossil fuel...enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that their business model is inconsistent with human survival.”

 —UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, January 2023

Greenwashing

The company has made a variety of statements and pledges that give the impression that it's not involved in expanding fossil fuel production. For example, the company's Race to Zero pledge indicates it has stopped facilitation of new fossil fuel projects, to be in line with realistic IPCC net zero pathways. Rather than fulfilling this obligation, Elsevier/RELX has removed or altered some of its fossil fuel-oriented marketing materials for products like ScienceDirect and Knovel—but these products continue to be used by many oil majors to facilitate new fossil fuel projects.

Former content

Altered content

R&D—Oil and Gas:
"Solutions for Oil and Gas"
R&D—Sustainability and climate change: "Solutions for a Sustainable World"
R&D—exploration and production: Drive E&P investment decisions
R&D: "Scientific insights for net-zero transition"
Books: "An abundance of important topics within the oil, chemical, and petrochemical engineering fields."
Books: "An abundance of important topics within sustainable oil, natural gas, chemical, and petrochemical engineering fields."
CONTENT REMOVED
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D Solutions: "Oil and gas going green"
CONTENT REMOVED
CONTENT REMOVED
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D—Knovel: "Reducing risk in Exploration and Production investments"
CONTENT REMOVED
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D: Oil and Gas: "Do More With Less"
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D—Knovel Oil and Gas: "Accelerated discoveries"
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D—Knovel Oil and Gas: "Enhanced Oil Recovery"
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D—Oil and Gas Promo Video: "Exploration has never been more seamless."
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D—Deepwater Exploration: Locate “hydrocarbon accumulations that we couldn’t find before”
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D—Knovel:
"Knovel helps oil and gas companies achieve operational excellence and reduce risk in an unpredictable environment
CONTENT REMOVED
R&D Solutions for OIL& GAS EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION:
The Best Path to Operational Excellence May Require Being More Innovative.
CONTENT REMOVED


Declaring journals as having 'transitioned' has not resulted in a prohibition on extensive content that serves new oil and gas, activity the IPCC has declared needs to already have stopped to realistically ensure a just and timely transition. Elsevier journals remain staffed by fossil fuel industry professionals whose employers are working to develop these resources. Despite this being activity that will decimate our climate, the company maintains that it “wouldn’t want to tell journal editors what they can and can’t publish.” (Márcia Balisciano, Global Head of Corporate Responsibility)

"We need to make sure that we are definitely focused on data for good. Our colleagues are doing just that."

—Dr. Márcia Balisciano, Global Head of Corporate Responsibility, RELX
'Unique Contributions' podcast, 2021

"[Using] predictive analytics to help find things that weren’t found before. That’s really what Elsevier...is good at."

Elsevier webinar: Data Management in Natural Resource Exploration & Production

"Fossil fuels are the greatest contributor to climate change. Allowing the continued expansion of this industry is unconscionable."

—Muhammad Yunus
Keynote speaker at RELX SDG Inspiration Day, 2021

"RELX is one of the most sustainable businesses in the world."

—Youngsuk Chi
Director of Corporate Affairs and
Asia Strategy, RELX
'Unique Contributions' podcast, 2021

Previous scope

Altered scope

2023 paper examples

Unconventional Resources:
Covering “geologic, geophysical, and engineering aspects of all unconventional resource opportunities.”
Unconventional Resources:
‍Focusing "on energy transition and achieving net-zero emission targets."
> Potential target for oil exploration
‍
> Reservoir prediction method

> Favorable oil exploration areas
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering:
To "bridge the gap between the engineering, the geology and the science of petroleum and natural gas."
Rebranded: Geoenergy Science and Engineering:
Focusing "on energy transition and achieving net-zero emission targets."
Marine and Petroleum Geology: "The exchange of multidisciplinary concepts, interpretations and techniques for all concerned with marine and petroleum geology."
Marine and Petroleum Geology:
"The journal aims to advance the environmentally sustainable exploration and utilization of natural resources of petroleum and gas hydrate."
> Significant exploration potential
‍
> Prediction of oil potential
‍
> Petroleum exploration targets

Timeline

2004RELX/Elsevier joins the UNGC, pledging a “precautionary approach to environmental challenges” in which a lack of scientific certainty is not a reason to postpone “measures to prevent environmental degradation” if there are "threats of serious or irreversible damage.”

2010Elsevier launches Geofacets, a workflow solution "requested by geoscientists working in resource exploration." (Webinar: Introduction to the Geofacets-SEPM Millenium Edition)

2011(at the latest) Scientists warn that most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned without causing catastrophic global heating.

2011"Elsevier and the Society [Geological Society of London] will deliver significant advantage to companies focused on upstream oil and gas exploration...a vital repository for exploration teams around the world."

2011"Elsevier has been serving the [oil and gas] industry for over 40 years," now with "over 60 journals...used by geoscientists in the industry on a daily basis." (Elsevier oil and gas webinar, How to Make a New Venture Project More Successful, July 13, 2011)

2013Elsevier positions itself "as the leading book publisher for the oil and gas industry."

Carbon Tracker diagram (2014).

Carbon Tracker diagram (2019).

2015 Paris Agreement calls for limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels to prevent serious and irreversible damage. Scientists declare that to limit global temperature below 2C, half of known oil reserves, a third of gas, and 80% of coal had to stay in the ground.

‍2015Elsevier R&D Solutions case study: "Helping experts dig deeper and discover more...there’s no better partner." Elsevier offers "dependable geological information" to identify "the greatest potential for an economically viable petroleum system with the lowest exploration and production risk." The company promotes a "gold rush" for Mexican oil and gas as also being a "data rush" that the company can provide; by 2023, private companies will have increased petroleum production in Mexico over the previous five years.

‍2016"Oil and gas companies need to invest $250 billion per year in exploration, and drill approximately 670,000 wells [by 2020]. Achieving operational excellence requires a sustainable commitment to investing" (R&D Solutions: The Best Path to Operational Excellence May Require Being More Innovative PDF)

‍2017RELX pledges to be “part of the global effort to hold warming to well below 2°C.” (We Are Still In Declaration)

‍2017"Elsevier’s R&D Solutions is a portfolio of tools that integrate data, analytics and technology capabilities to help oil & gas businesses reduce E&P costs and boost operational efficiency" (R&D Solutions for Oil and Gas PDF)

‍2017RELX AGM, regarding negative impacts of products: "Mr Nick Luff explained that...RELX focused its efforts [on its own activities] rather than trying to measure what exactly the customers did with the products."

‍2018 Scientists call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty to keep warming below 1.5°C.

‍2019 RELX states that “we believe the Paris Climate Agreement is our best hope for avoiding dangerous climate change…We support global efforts to mitigate climate change through the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.” (RELX Climate Change Statement)

‍2019 Elsevier "enables entire exploration and development teams to gain a deeper understanding of petroleum systems and reservoir properties." (Elsevier Oil and Gas PDF)

‍2019 "Elsevier’s solutions...help oil & gas businesses increase productivity" (Oil and gas going green white paper)

2020 RELX commits to “actions that are consistent with a 1.5-degree pathway.” (Climate Pact)

2020 Elsevier explains that finding new resources is what it is "good at" in this exploration and production webinar and that "Oil & Gas customers are gaining increasing value from ScienceDirect, with unlimited access to an ever-expanding library of interdisciplinary content across a wide range of subject areas." (ScienceDirect Corporate Edition PDF)

2021 The IPCC and IEA conclude new fossil fuel developments are incompatible with the 1.5°C goal.

2021 As "one of the most sustainable businesses in the world," the company pledges its “committed to the protection of the environment, through the prevention of pollution [and to] minimising its contribution to climate change, in line with the scale of action deemed necessary by science.” (RELX Global Environment Policy)

2021 The company continues to offer products and services for the purpose of "accelerating" fossil fuel discoveries for most oil majors—seeming to publish more content dedicated to this than at any time previous. Elsevier is "helping solve the exploration puzzle in upstream oil and gas. Exploration has never been more seamless."

2021  According to a complaint filed with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, employees make leadership aware it is in violation of its human rights and other pledges; Elsevier's CEO is non responsive to multiple employee inquiries. Rather than discontinue support for new oil and gas, the company starts to remove and alter fossil fuel-oriented marketing materials.

2022 The company declares it is still "not prepared to draw a line between the transition away from fossil fuels and the expansion of oil and gas."

2022 Elsevier flagship journal The Lancet publishes a commentary article that declares Elsevier's continued support for coal, oil, and gas exploration to be "morally and materially insupportable." The Lancet Planetary Health publishes a call to “end expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure and production […due to the] need to save lives from pollution and climate change-related harm.”

2022 The Union of Concerned Scientists and Scientists for Global Responsibility launch a petition requesting the company address its failures to abide by its climate and human rights commitments.

2023 The company fails to stop facilitating new fossil fuel projects by June 15, a requirement in its Race to Zero commitment. In providing "data and analytics and information" in support of fossil fuel expansion, CFO Nick Luff informs investors that "the world still needs fossil fuels." Products and services the company tells investors have been "repurposed" and "transitioned" are in fact still being used to accelerate fossil fuel discoveries.

2022 UN investigators send a letter to companies facilitating "continued exploration for more oil and gas," indicating this generates complicity in "significantly worsened climate change-related human rights impacts." 

UCS/SGR petition signatories have reserved the right to launch a UN-guided Grievance Mechanism process regarding previous and ongoing business activity that's a threat to human rights and the planet.

February 24, 2022

About this website

Climate scientists are considering initiating a UN-guided Grievance Mechanism process to address the climate-related human rights impacts of Elsevier and its parent company RELX. This website and its content are not affiliated with Elsevier or its parent company RELX.

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