Western Australia’s peak environment group has called on Chevron to re-employ sacked workers to help meet its environmental obligations.
The call comes after it was revealed today that the company had sacked 230 workers from its LNG processing operations in Western Australia.
CCWA Director Piers Verstegen said sacking 230 workers was a “callous act” by Chevron when the company had plenty of work to do to meet its basic environmental obligations.
“We are calling on Chevron to re-employ these men and women and deploy them to plant trees, install renewable energy and other projects that cut pollution.
“This would be a small step towards making up for the millions of tons of CO2 Chevron has failed to inject underground at Barrow Island.
“Chevron's operating conditions require the company to provide alternative offsets if the carbon injection does not work but to date, the company has failed to do so and is in breach of its operating conditions.
“Sacking workers while this multi-billion-dollar multinational fails to meet its basic environmental obligations is a disgraceful act that shows Chevron to have little care for WA working families or the environment.
“Clearly Chevron needs more encouragement to be a responsible corporate citizen and it is time that the WA Government took action to require this company to clean up its act and meet its basic operating conditions.
“If the WA government were holding this company to account, Chevron may not be sacking workers. Instead, it would be creating hundreds of jobs in tree planting, carbon farming, renewable energy, and other job-creating projects to offset its pollution.
“We have previously called on the Minister for the Environment and DWER to initiate regulatory action against Chevron for their pollution breaches and this should be done as an absolute priority.
“The gas industry is already WA’s smallest employer by sector. By blocking action on climate change and failing to meet their operating conditions, gas companies like Chevron and Woodside have denied Australian working families more clean jobs than the industry has ever created.”