Asset integrity management: sustainability in action

The current industrial demand is to be more 'green', whilst increasing pressure for formulating policies and strategies for sustainable asset performance. Asset integrity management issues conceived within oil and gas (O&G) sector in terms of the long-established paradigm seemingly is unsustainable. The conventional industrial paradigm of unlimited growth appears to be unsustainable as it requires unlimited capture from limited resource capacities and unwarranted environmental effects absorbing externalities. What O&G industry needs is an entirely new paradigm for the way it handles issues related to asset integrity. This article presents an approach that describes how asset integrity management and sustainability performance can be blended together at industrial plant level. The study is based on a project launched in Norway, which provides careful understanding to permit better integration of performance critical information into day-to-day operational decisions and institutionalisation of management practice based on sustainability concerns along a cross section of an organisation.