Socioeconomic Impacts

Among the positive indirect socioeconomic impacts, we highlight the collection of taxes and government participation (PGOV), especially royalties and special participation. On an accrual basis, the 2021 calculation totaled BRL 186.8 billion, as shown in the table above (“Distribution of Added Value”). On a cash basis, we paid BRL 202.9 billion in taxes and PGOV to the federal government, states, and municipalities.

 

Taxes and PGOV per sphere of government

 

Another important positive impact of our activity is the generation of jobs and income in the supply chain.  In 2021, the parent company signed commitments with 9,751 suppliers and, considering the total value of contracts and orders signed during the year, 55.43% refer to contracts with suppliers based in Brazil. We highlight that, excluding the contracting of production vessels (FPSO), which include disbursements to be made in the next 20-25 years, the percentage in value of commitments assumed with national suppliers was 89.43%. We emphasize that the FPSO contracts signed this year have an obligation to carry out local content between 25% and 40%.

In the period, Transpetro entered into commitments with 3,878 suppliers and, considering the total amount of transactions carried out, 99.56% of them were entered into with suppliers based in Brazil.

Of the commitments made 2021 by our subsidiary Petrobras Biocombustível, 42.6% went to local suppliers. In this case, local suppliers are considered to be all those established in the same State as the destination of the product and/or service procured by the biodiesel plant.

We also emphasize the positive impacts of our social and environmental investments and sponsorships. The distribution and evolution of socio-environmental investment and cultural, sports, business, science, and technology sponsorship over the past five years can be seen in the chart below.

 

Socio-environmental sponsorship investments and in culture, sports, and business, science and technology (million BRL)

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In addition to socio-environmental investments and sponsorship projects, to increase our contribution to society, in 2021 we made several donations in response to Covid-19 and other calamities, such as the donation of oxygen cylinders, oxygen micro plants, basic food items and kits containing drugs for intubating patients. As a result, we reached the amount of BRL 101 million in donations, of which 16.5% were donations of goods and services, while cash donations represented 83.5% of this total. Check out our donations: Donations made in 2021.

 

Despite the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, we also carried out several volunteer actions throughout 2021. In addition to these initiatives, we implemented a digital platform for the dissemination and management of our volunteer actions. The new platform was launched on August 30, 2021.  With the implementation of this tool, the Petrobras Volunteering Program moved into a new phase of action, in which registered employees can find different opportunities for volunteer work, in addition to suggesting new actions and interacting with the proposed actions.                 

 

Volunteer work results (2021)

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Voluntary social and environmental investments

Our voluntary socio-environmental investment, structured within the scope of the Petrobras Socio-environmental Program, meets the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan as a tool to support the sustainability of our business. Through this program, we develop socio-environmental solutions on topics relevant to the oil and gas industry and in the territories where we operate, seeking positive socio-environmental transformations, consolidating relationships with stakeholders, generating technical and scientific information, and strengthening our reputation with our stakeholders.

The Program's lines of action are Education, Sustainable Economic Development, Ocean, and Forests and use as drivers the recurring demands of the territories where we operate, the strategy of transition to a low carbon economy and offshore operations. Through these lines, we prioritize the contribution to four Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): (4) Quality Education, (8) Decent Work and Economic Growth; (14) Life below Water and (15) Life on Land. Early childhood, innovation and human rights are among the transversal themes to be considered in all the projects that make up the portfolio of socio-environmental projects that we support.

In 2021, we carried out a public selection of projects from the Petrobras Socio-environmental Program. 23 new projects were contemplated to be implemented in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Santa Catarina, and Paraná. The projects will receive, in total, around BRL 41 million to develop their activities during the two-year period, complementing the current project portfolio. Such projects will operate predominantly in the surroundings of our units, in an integrated manner with community relationship activities, as well as on environmental issues relevant to the business.

In addition to the lines of action that were already being developed throughout 2021, in September 2021, the allocation of BRL 300 million was approved, over a period of 15 months, for the creation of a social program to support families in situations of social vulnerability to contribute to access to essential consumables, with a focus on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), popularly known as cooking gas. The program aims at aligning our social action with that practiced by other market players and is justified by the effects of the exceptional and emergency situation arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Our socio-environmental projects have goals and indicators established from the moment they were authorized, which allow us to periodically assess their performance. The frequency of this evaluation is defined at the beginning of each project, as well as the means of verification. The collection of information may vary for each project, generally covering information on the public served, the engagement in the planned activities and the results obtained in the socio-environmental actions. We highlight some of these results below:

 

Indicators for socio-environmental Project results

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In addition to monitoring indicators, we also carry out analyzes of the socio-environmental return on investment (Social Return on Investment - SROI and its variant of Cost-Benefit Analysis - ACB) whose methodology converts the environmental, social and economic transformations that have occurred as a result of the project implementation into monetary values. Since the pilot project was carried out in 2019, we have expanded the use of the SROI-ACB to evaluate our socio-environmental investment projects, which currently total 11 projects and an NPV of BRL 226 million. On average, the projects evaluated return BRL 5.10 in social and environmental benefits for each real invested by Petrobras.

 

Investment in cultural, sports and business, science, and technology sponsorship

Sponsorship selection is carried out through the “direct choice” or “public selection” modalities. Each and every sponsorship opportunity undergoes an internal analysis, based on predefined criteria, in order to ensure transparency and compliance with the decision to contract the opportunity in question.  

We highlight the sponsorship of Orquestra Petrobras, the Rio de Janeiro Book Biennial, the Petrobras Team at the Olympics, the Supermaker web series of the Manual do Mundo digital channel and our participation in the World Petroleum Congress (WPC) - and Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) - in Houston. In the cultural sphere, sponsorships are related to innovative Brazilian projects that are innovative, with potential for return, and alignment with our brand strategy. The sponsored projects follow lines of action with a focus on music, performing arts, audiovisual and multiple expressions. Two public calls were developed for the selection of cultural projects: the first for fairs and literary actions, with a selection process carried out in 2021, and the second aimed at valuing Brazilian culture in museums and similar spaces, which is in progress. 

In sports sponsorships, the highlight was the continued support for the training of Olympic sports athletes who together form the so-called Petrobras Team and represented Brazil at the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. The project ensured broad visibility for our brand, participation of athletes in videoconferences or in-person actions and activation in social networks, always associating the company with positive attributes such as high performance, teamwork, reaching goals, overcoming challenges, among others.

Sponsorships for business, science and technology events intensify the relationship with partners, investors, customers, the academic and scientific community, among others. We sponsor several initiatives that arouse curiosity and promote experimentation and conversations on topics related to innovation and the changing world. We also sponsor projects related to activities in the energy business, with a focus on oil and gas, and in the corporate world, with emphasis on issues related to governance, compliance, and business excellence.

 

Evaluation of the return in image of socio-environmental projects and sponsorships

Different methodologies are used to select, manage, and evaluate projects, individually and jointly, including technical assessments, potential assessment, scope realization assessment, generated media measurement and public surveys.

One of these metrics, generated every three months, is the assessment of reputational dimensions, carried out through the RepTrak™ survey, which assesses several reputation dimensions, including the targeted recall of social, environmental, cultural and sports sponsorship initiatives.  The study allows us to verify differences in the assessment of corporate reputation between those who had contact with our sponsorship projects (recall) and those who did not. Since the beginning of the historical series, in the 2nd quarter of 2016, the perception of our reputation among those who had contact with cultural and sports sponsorships, in relation to those who did not have contact, has an average positive difference of more than 5 percentage points, with the difference between these two groups (those who had and did not have contact with the projects) reaching more than 10 percentage points in the last quarter of analysis (3rd quarter of 2021).

Monitoring the perception of corporate reputation also reveals to us that those who have knowledge of our social and environmental projects have a superior perception in relation to those who do not have that knowledge. Although this reputational delta varies with each quarterly monitoring, in our RepTrak™ history, the difference in 2021 remains above 10.5 percentage points, which demonstrates the relevance of these projects to our reputation.

Also, we evaluate the return on investment of the main sponsorships, according to the Ibope Repucom methodology. In 2021, this monitoring analyzed, until the third quarter alone, about 54 hours of exposure of the brand on TV and streaming, identifying more than 14,000 appearances of the Petrobras brand. In the "Team Petrobras" project alone, for example, around 27.6 million reais in media value was obtained.

We manage the socio-economic impacts and risks that may affect communities located in the areas where our activities are carried out through environmental licensing or through the management of social risks and local plans for Social Responsibility and Community Relations.

 

Environmental licensing

Environmental licensing is a legal obligation, in which we strictly follow all the guidelines and rules for its execution, such as Federal Law 6,938/81, Complementary Law No. 140/2011 and CONAMA Resolutions No. 001/86 and No. 237/97.

The environmental licensing process includes an analysis of socioeconomic impacts in the region, considering the survey of all aspects of the activities and their respective impacts, according to the environmental impact studies and current regulations. For those impacts identified as negative, mitigation or compensation measures are developed and implemented, while for positive impacts, actions are defined to enhance them.

The assessment of impacts is carried out per project, or set of projects, and the starting point is the identification of the activities inherent to each phase (Design, Installation, Operation and Decommissioning), characterizing the socioeconomic environment, qualifying the environmental risk, and proposing the respective monitoring, mitigation or compensation measures, in addition to the Environmental Compensation provided for in the SNUC Law.

Among the conditions, the Environmental Education Programs (PEA) stand out, which are aimed at communities in the area of influence and are based on critical, dialogical and emancipatory training, as well as the Social Communication Programs (PCS), which maintain communication channels (Call Center, 0800 Channel and online information portals) that provide information on operational activities, social and environmental projects developed. In 2021, the total invested by us in projects to mitigate/compensate for socio-economic impacts was in the order of BRL 107.7 million.

 

Social risk management in projects

In addition to the legal obligations of the environmental licensing process, we have defined an internal system for assessing social and environmental risks, in addition to other aspects, during the transition to the investment projects phase. The System requires the presentation of minimum information about the project, which must be included in the Technical and Economic Feasibility Study Report (EVTE) for each phase. Among the documents that make up the EVTE Report for investment projects over USD 100 million, the project must present a Social Responsibility Report and an HSE Report - Health, Safety, and Environment. The Social Responsibility report is comprised of information about the project, the characterization of the social context, and the matrix of the identified social risks. The HSE Report presents, in addition to other information, the description of the fulfillment of the applicable HSE requirements and the HSE risks of the project.

We also have systems for the development of decommissioning and divestment projects of assets and companies, in addition to HSE policies, guidelines and standards, which establish guidelines, processes and activities to plan and execute decommissioning or divestment of offshore and onshore assets.

With regard to the decommissioning of oil production platforms, our position is that decommissioning actions always aim at the least impact from the environmental, social, technical, operational and economic risks standpoints, in line with the approach that technically underlies the environmental licensing processes. 

It is noteworthy that before starting the execution of any stage of the decommissioning projects, they are submitted for approval by IBAMA, the Navy, and ANP, as required by the current legislation, after carrying out studies to evaluate decommissioning alternatives. In accordance with ANP Resolution 817/2020, we started to include in the Installations Decommissioning Programs (PDI) a chapter with information on the social responsibility and sustainability system.

 

Local social responsibility and community relationship plans

We identify, analyze, and respond to the possible socioeconomic impacts of our operations using the diagnosis and social analysis of communities in the area covered by our operations as a management tool.  In 2021, we started a new round of elaboration of the socioeconomic diagnosis of communities and municipalities with the purpose of subsidizing the management of social responsibility, identifying, and analyzing territorial strengths and weaknesses, history of (positive and negative) social impacts and prospecting associated future scenarios to our operations in these territories.

During this process, municipal socioeconomic indicators are consulted, as well as specific data from the communities mapped in the territory, such as social actors, traditional peoples and communities, the existence of conflicts, and the existence of impacts and risks arising from our activities. With the systematization of this information, social responsibility and community relationship plans are drawn up in order to provide answers to community questions from the business units.

The plans are annual, and the process also provides for periodic reviews and updates. The actions provided for in the plans seek to respond to the social risks identified in the diagnosis and to increase the level of engagement of the communities with us, seeking to maintain permanent dialogue and expand community participation in the planning of actions.

In 2021, we established as one of our Sustainability Commitments that 100% of our operations have socio-economic diagnoses reviewed and finalized by 2025. Currently, there are 22 local plans for social responsibility and community relations, covering 100% of our refining, exploration, and production units.

 

Claims and complaints

In addition to community relationship actions, we also provide channels for direct contact with us to register complaints and claims, such as 0800 728 9001 (Customer Service) and an institutional email for the social responsibility teams that serve the Business Unit.

With regard to claims and complaints from the communities present in the coverage area, the records are made via Customer Service and through the Ombudsman-General. We provide assistance through toll-free phones with 24-hour service coverage, seven days a week, through contact channels widely disseminated in the communities where we operate.

This information is categorized by unit and by topic and is monitored by the SAC Panel.  In 2021, 804 requests were received through this channel.

We answer and deal with the questions presented by the communities mainly through community committees, which take place in our operational units and in partnership with our social and environmental projects.  We incorporated these recurring requests into the business units' social responsibility and community relationship plans.