The energy industry is facing pressure from investors, policymakers, consumers, and activists to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain, but how oil and gas firms will fit into this evolving landscape is an open question. Despite a paucity of regulatory interventions, some firms have begun to address the issue—whether out of a sense of social responsibility, fear of environmental activists, search for new market opportunities, or an impulse to mimic peer firms. We formulate a general framework that captures each of these factors, apply it to build an empirically grounded agent-based model, and provide insights into the distribution of outcomes in the oil and gas industry’s flaring performance in the US. We first examine possible drivers of differences between top-down and bottom-up estimates of flaring. Then, projecting future scenarios, we evaluate which market constructs and types of activism can drive further improvements.

中文翻译：

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股东、监管和社会对公司行为和能源市场结果的影响


能源行业正面临来自投资者、政策制定者、消费者和活动家的压力，要求他们减少整个价值链的温室气体排放，但石油和天然气公司将如何适应这一不断变化的格局是一个悬而未决的问题。尽管缺乏监管干预，但一些公司已经开始解决这个问题——无论是出于社会责任感、对环保活动家的恐惧、寻找新的市场机会，还是模仿同行公司的冲动。我们制定了一个通用框架来捕获这些因素中的每一个，将其应用于构建一个基于经验的基于代理的模型，并提供对美国石油和天然气行业火炬燃除绩效结果分布的见解。我们首先研究了自上而下和自下而上的燃除估计之间差异的可能驱动因素。然后，预测未来情景，我们评估哪些市场结构和激进主义类型可以推动进一步改进。