The global energy landscape is increasingly complex. Energy security and affordability are high on the agenda, demand continues to grow, and the need to reduce emissions remains.
Progress shouldn’t wait for any one actor, and industry doesn’t need to wait to be told to take action.
Ten years ago, OGCI’s member companies came together to develop a common framework for measuring and reporting operational emissions. The logic was simple. If companies were going to set shared ambitions and work together to reduce emissions, we needed a consistent and transparent way to measure progress.
That became the OGCI Reporting Framework.
No regulation required OGCI members to create it. They chose to do it because a common approach would help companies understand their performance, learn from each other and move faster. That principle remains at the heart of OGCI today.
Over the past decade, we have seen what this kind of collaboration can deliver.
OGCI members have worked collectively to reduce methane emissions and routine flaring, lower emissions from oil and gas production and to improve the consistency of emissions reporting and advance CCUS.
And that experience now extends beyond our 12 member companies. Through the Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter, approaches and expertise developed through OGCI are now supporting companies representing around 40% of global oil production, almost twice the share represented by OGCI members alone, across very different markets and regulatory environments.
There is a lesson in that experience: there can be real value in voluntary action. It allows companies to move first, test what works, build trust through practical cooperation and then share what has proven useful with others more widely.
Of course, voluntary action is not a replacement for policy. Well-designed policies and regulations are needed to create the conditions for progress to go further and faster. But voluntary action founded in leadership can play an important role.
This distinction is important. OGCI is not a regulator or lobbying organization. Our role is different. We bring companies together, develop practical approaches, put them to work, share best practices and use that experience to support wider progress across the industry. How and if companies adopt them, is up to them.
Sometimes, OGCI engages with policymakers in areas directly connected to our work to share learnings. On methane, that can be relevant for regulations related to emissions reductions. On CCUS, we support clear policy and regulatory frameworks that can help projects move towards commercial deployment. But again, we do not engage in lobbying around specific regulations. Having said that, we do believe that industry can bring practical experience to conversations around regulations. Companies operating across different markets can share lessons around what works in practice and what can be scaled with available technologies.
In October, OGCI will publish its 2026 Progress Report, setting out how the member companies are progressing against their shared ambitions. It will provide the latest measure of what more than a decade of collaboration has delivered, and where there is still more work to do. Voluntary action cannot solve every challenge. But OGCI’s experience shows what it can do: bring companies together, establish shared best practices, turn collective ambition into measurable progress and help successful approaches reach further.
