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Preface by Dr Paul Ekins Corporate sustainable development strategies are still a relatively rare breed of business initiative. Sectoral sustainable development strategies, such as that detailed in this document, are even rarer innovations still. Both kinds of strategy reveal a shift in business thinking which is of potentially historic importance for the development of market-based societies in the future. First, they proclaim a commitment to achieve positive outcomes from business operations that extend beyond the financial bottom line to environmental and social impacts. Second, they proclaim a commitment to achieving long-term, as well as short-term benefits, rather than short-term profits with long-term costs. No one should underestimate the significance of this evolving shift in corporate culture. Readers of the following pages will discover that the managers of the UKOOA companies (and they are not atypical of large, well run businesses generally) are spending not inconsiderable sums to achieve social and environmental performance that often goes well beyond legal minima. On the face of it such investment may bring shareholders little or no direct return. Moreover, the strategies for this investment are likely to be developed and implemented in dialogue, and sometimes in co-operation, with government, unions, and environmental and other interest groups, who used to be treated with wary circumspection, if not actually regarded as the enemy. Have these managers gone soft, or what? And can we expect an imminent shareholders' rebellion? No, because the managers are actually acting on a profound insight, which is gradually - if more slowly - becoming obvious to shareholders as well. This is that companies in today's interconnected world are part of wider complex systems with numerous social and environmental, as well as economic, interactions and feedback. For companies to thrive, so must the wider systems. Long-term business success can, increasingly, only be achieved with complementary benefits for the wider society and the natural environment, rather than at their expense. This is the process that has come to be called sustainable development. This is not to say that the balance between these benefits will be easily struck, or that any balance will fully satisfy anybody. Even as the shareholder looks nervously at the dividend, the environmentalist will be calling for less pollution, more attention to habitats and ecosystems, and a greater sense of urgency about the climate change, which, along with the burning of fossil fuels from everywhere else, seems increasingly likely to be the end result of the use of UKOOA companies' products. The great advantage of sustainable development as an idea is that it provides a conceptual space within which discussions about these complex issues can take place, and decisions can be made, with more transparency and mutual understanding than was previously the case. As an environmentalist myself, I hope that the environmental dimension in UKOOA's collective thinking, and in that of its member companies, will continue to become more important. What is obvious to me is that this is far more likely to be the case in a group committed to sustainable development than in one with a strict old-style focus on 'the bottom line'. The same applies to social issues, of course. That is why this strategy is welcome and important to anyone who wants UKOOA companies to deploy their formidable resources, technologies and skills in such a way that the benefits they bring are widely shared and long-lasting. Of course, this strategy, UKOOA's first venture in this area, is just a start. Next, as all business people know, comes delivery against adopted targets, by which the strategy will be judged. It may be that there will be some painful failures, which will need to be learned from. This is always a risk of innovation, of seeking to be ahead of the game, of trying to engage constructively with new agendas, rather than simply responding to or resisting them. But it is often forgotten that just reacting to events also entails risks: of always trying to catch up, and never quite making it; and of never quite understanding the forces that are shaping the business environment, along with wider society. The strategy shows UKOOA's members opting boldly for the risks of proaction. I hope that this approach will yield resounding successes - economic, social and environmental: prosperity for owners; jobs, good wages, health and safety for workers; investment for local communities; and an unpolluted, diverse North Sea marine environment, which starts to yield a rich energy harvest from its wind and waves even as the yield from fossil fuels beneath the sea bed begins to decline. This is my aspiration for the sustainable development of Britain's offshore resources. There is enough in the pages which follow which resonates with this vision to encourage me to believe that the offshore operators have the will, as well as the resources, to make it a reality. Paul Ekins is Associate Director of the sustainable development charity Forum for the Future. He is also Professor of Sustainable Development in the School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment at Keele University and Head of the Environment Group at the Policy Studies Institute. Paul Ekins' academic work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. He is the author of numerous papers and articles, and has written or edited six books. In 1994, he received the UNEP Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement.