Local and traditional communities

Engagement with local communities occurs through public hearings and social communication programs established throughout the environmental licensing processes and through the community relationship process.

 As part of the environmental licensing of new developments, the environmental agency requests social participation in a consultative manner aimed at the analysis for issuing the license. Social participation occurs through public hearings that we hold with the participation of various authorities and communities located in the areas of influence of the development or activity.

In 2024, we held public hearings, informative meetings, and public sessions as illustrated in Figure 5.1

Currently, we have 158 assets in construction or operation. Of this total, 94% (148 assets) have undergone some form of consultation with communities. Among the projects under development, we  have 30 projects being implemented, of which 93% (28 projects) had their Environmental Impact Reports, for the purposes of public hearings, made available by Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), at state environmental agencies and/or the Petrobras website, in addition to being distributed at locations indicated by the environmental agencies, such as city halls, Public Prosecutor’s Office, Conservation Units, depending on the phase of the licensing process.

Our social and environmental risk management processes aim to prevent and mitigate impacts on the environment, ensuring that communities in the areas where we operate have the right to a healthy environment, respecting their health and livelihoods.

To prevent and mitigate the negative risks and impacts of our activities and to enhance the positive impacts on local communities, we implement the environmental and social plans and programs approved in the environmental licensing processes, as well as community relationship actions, socioenvironmental investments, and the management of social and environmental risks throughout the business lifecycle.
 

We understand that access to drinking water and sanitation is essential to our activities and to society, and the management of water resources at Petrobras seeks to rationalize water use. In the past four years, freshwater withdrawal has been reduced by more than 20%, and we have committed to reducing freshwater withdrawal by 40% by 2030 based on 2021 levels. Petrobras is committed to water security and has set as one of its ESG drivers to be positive in water in areas of water criticality where it operates, contributing to the preservation of this important resource for society.

The set up of context is the initial step that underpins the entire social risk management process. This step is carried out through a socio-territorial diagnosis, which consists of translating the reality experienced by a population in a specific geographic area. In January 2024, the phase of collecting and analyzing primary and secondary data in 786 communities located near our units was started. 

These communities were prioritized based on the identification of social risks and impacts from 38 units in 141 municipalities across 16 Brazilian states. In addition to strategic drivers, we used inputs for this prioritization such as environmental studies (EIA/Rima), iso-risk curves, results from corporate image surveys (SISMICO), historical records of complaints, criticisms, and suggestions from communities received through our channels (Ombudsman, Customer Service, and others), any administrative and judicial disputes, as well as the perceptions of teams dedicated to community relations in those units.
 

We develop several corporate citizenship practices aimed at responding to the demands of the communities in the territories where we operate, achieving positive socio-environmental transformations, contributing to a just energy transition, protecting the environment through the promotion of conservation, restoration, and biodiversity gains, and consolidating our relationships with our stakeholders. These actions can occur through socio-environmental investments and sponsorships, donations, and volunteer activities, as detailed in Table 5.1

Based on this information, we identified gaps and opportunities for the project portfolio and evaluate the need for public selections or the incorporation of projects present in our proposal bank. The socio-environmental project portfolio was planned considering the following guiding factors: the level of criticality of the operational units, the recomposition of the project portfolio in the North, Northeast, and South regions of the country, the increased use of state and federal tax incentives, and the extension of the duration and value of the projects, aiming to enhance positive impacts. As a result, opportunities for new socio-environmental projects were defined, leading to the largest public selection of the Petrobras Socio-environmental Program. This process, which was completed in 2024, foresees an investment of BRL 446 million over a period of 4 years in 63 approved projects, the largest volume of resources invested in a socio-environmental selection in Brazil. The selected projects will complement the portfolio of ongoing projects, totaling approximately 160 projects and BRL 1.5 billion to be invested by the company from 2025 to 2029.

The Petrobras Autonomy and Income Program focuses on the professional qualification of individuals in situations of socioeconomic vulnerability and/or unemployment to improve employment opportunities in the Oil and Gas sector in locations within the scope of Petrobras operations. The program prioritizes the qualification of underrepresented groups, such as women, black and brown individuals, transgender people, people with disabilities, and refugees.

In 2024, professional qualification classes for 1,065 students in the seven brazilian states participating in the program started. As shown in Figure 5.2, about 72% of the students are black and brown individuals, 60% are women, and 4% are people with disabilities, reinforcing Petrobras’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. After completing the courses, students are guided to register their resumes in the National Employment System (SINE) or the Workers’ Assistance Posts (PAT) in the municipalities covered by the program. Similarly, companies that make up Petrobras’s supply chain are encouraged to post their job openings in these agencies to contribute to increasing opportunities for employing graduates from the Petrobras Autonomy and Income Program.
 

One of the themes identified in the planning phase was the need to expand the project portfolio focused on the Equatorial Margin region, in the North and Northeast regions of the country. Among the projects selected for this region, we highlight the Strengthening Productive Chains Project in Amapá, Pará, and Maranhão, carried out by SENAI - National Service for Industrial Learning, aimed at promoting the bioeconomy in the Legal Amazon. The initiative seeks to encourage local sustainable development through professional education and technology, the creation of new products and socioenvironmental businesses, collective organization, and community participation, in addition to respecting the environment and local communities. The project prioritizes traditional communities, such as families of artisanal fishermen, quilombolas, and Indigenous peoples.

Aiming at working from a long-term results perspective and improving the management process of supported socio-environmental projects, Petrobras has begun to use the Theory of Change for presenting proposals for socioenvironmental projects, as well as the methodologies of Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) for evaluating the impact of projects in the portfolio.

All selected sponsorships, as well as others already in the Communication portfolio, will undergo evaluation using the IDP (Sponsorship Performance Index) indicator. The process considers the IDP of contracted sponsorships, aligned with strategic drivers and opportunities for the company. The IDP is a process indicator that evaluates the performance of sponsorships contracted by Petrobras in the areas of Culture, Sports, and Business, Science and Technology. Each sponsorship project is unique, and even between editions, there may be variations in the scope and proposed items.

Além dos investimentos em projetos socioambientais e patrocínios, realizamos também doações com o objetivo de contribuir para a sociedade com ações que auxiliem para a solução de problemas sociais e/ou ambientais e que envolvam oportunidades de atuação junto aos nossos públicos de interesse. Em 2024, doamos 29 milhões de reais.

Throughout 2024, our primary donation was directed toward emergency actions resulting from the heavy rains that struck Rio Grande do Sul between April and May 2024, causing material and environmental impacts on the lives of the population, infrastructure, economy, and the functioning of public institutions. Knowing that recovery efforts will require structured and consistent long-term initiatives, we organized a series of crisis response actions, with special attention to the impacted communities living near our facilities.

Reaffirming our commitment to reducing inequalities and supporting national development, we will invest approximately BRL 100 million in the Petrobras Movement for Rio Grande Program, which consists of a series of actions for Rio Grande do Sul. The program will operate over the next two years in four areas: society, environment, company assets, and institutional relations. A task force will centralize and monitor the implementation of the initiatives.
 

We developed 71 volunteering actions throughout 2024, with the participation of 1,718 volunteers. Our actions reached an audience of 12,890 beneficiaries.

In 2024, we approved the expansion of the Petrobras Volunteering Program to include participation from contracted workforce. We also increased the allowance for up to 80 hours per year for employees to engage in volunteer work in emergency situations or officially declared public calamities by governmental administrative authorities.
 

Through the Petrobras Socio-environmental Program, we support 65 socio-environmental projects aimed at contributing to the institutional strengthening and autonomy of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, representing 57% of the total number of projects currently supported by the program. In total, we support 105 Indigenous peoples or villages, 88 quilombola communities, and another 164 traditional communities through support for conservation actions that promote the sustainable use of natural resources, considering lifestyles, production systems, and knowledge associated with sociobiodiversity. Among the developed projects, we note several that are part of our portfolio and promote income generation through sustainable production and/or community-based tourism:

In 2024, the training plan on human rights included lectures aimed at raising awareness among the workforce about the importance of human rights, as well as outlining corporate guidelines and channels for reporting complaints and grievances. These events were conducted in both remote and in-person formats, targeting employees and service providers, including leadership from Intelligence and Corporate Security. Additionally, 26 in-person workshops were held, addressing our guidelines on Security and Human Rights, which involved 598 professionals; 8 (eight) live sessions titled “Human Rights in ISC”: a perspective on caring for people, covering topics such as Masculinities and Machismo, Violence Against Women, Guidelines on the Use of Social Name, Persons with Disabilities, and the Petrobras Well-Being Program (PPBEM), with an average participation of 174 employees in each event. In addition to the training opportunities for the entire workforce, 4 (four) events were specifically conducted to train the leadership of the Intelligence and Corporate Security area, with an average participation of 46 leaders per event.