The state-run oil and gas company Petroperú caused a huge oil spill in the Piura region of Perú, even as it holds an ISO 14001 environmental management system certification issued by SGS.
According to Amazon Watch, 10,000 meters of ocean and four beaches have been affected by the spill, which was caused by an unknown incident at Petroperú’s Talara Refinery near Piura:
Although the company assured that it had controlled the situation immediately and suspended operations as a preventive measure, the impact of the spill has already extended to four beaches: Las Capullanas, Lanchón, Palizada, and La Bola, and affects approximately 10,000 cubic meters of the sea in the province of Lobitos, according to the Environmental Assessment and Oversight Agency (OEFA) and the District Municipality of Lobitos.
Per Noticias Ambientales:
The spill occurred in the southern sector of the beach, in the district of Lobitos, Piura department, approximately 10 kilometers from the Talara Refinery. The state-owned company Petroperú issued a statement announcing the activation of contingency protocols to address the situation.
However, the company did not provide additional details on the cause of the accident or specify the amount of spilled crude oil.
Under Peruvian law, oil companies are only required to self-report such spills. Underreporting and downplaying the amount of oil lost go unpunished in the country. According to reporting by Mongabay:
Spills that occur in the sea are not monitored. Neither Osinergmin nor OEFA verify the figures provided by oil companies. This should be the responsibility of DICAPI, which oversees Peru’s ban on dumping waste in the sea.
Between 2013 and 2018, OEFA filed six administrative proceedings against oil companies responsible for marine spills. In two of these it used DICAPI’s reports to penalize the companies for lying about the quantity spilled. In another two, with no DICAPI reports available, it accepted the information provided by the oil companies without questioning it. In the remaining two, the companies failed to provide figures on the quantity spilled and OEFA decided the penalty without this information.
ISO 14001 Certificate Covers Talara
The ISO 14001 certificate issued by certification body SGS specifically covers Petroperú’s operations in Piura and the Talara Refinery. That certificate claims that the Petroperú sites listed on the certificate “have been evaluated and certified as complying with the requirements of ISO 14001.” The certificate covers the activities of “storage, transportation, distribution and commercialization of liquid hydrocarbons and biocombustibles, and refining of crude oil.”
The spill occurred one day before the certificate shown on the Petroperú website was set to expire. Still, it is understood that a new certificate has since been issued to Petroperú by SGS and has simply not yet been uploaded to the Petroperú website.
The certificate issued to Petroperú was accredited by ANAB, which has a long history of defending improper actions by certification bodies, including SGS, and refusing to enforce ISO 17021-1 rules on such bodies.
SGS’ marketing of ISO 14001 claims:
With ISO 14001, you can learn to systematically manage the environmental responsibilities that contribute to sustainability.
An EMS can provide value to the environment, your organization and interested parties. Consistent with your environmental policy, the benefits of an EMS include: environmental performance enhancement, achievement of environmental objectives, fulfillment of compliance obligations, brand growth, [and] risk avoidance.
CBs such as SGS typically will claim, after a disaster, that such certifications cannot prevent disasters, despite the contradictory language in their marketing and on the certificates themselves.
Corruption & Lack of Oversight
Two certification bodies dominate the market in Peru and surrounding countries: Bureau Veritas and SGS. Both are accused of issuing certificates under bribes or other illicit means and are not held accountable by government officials in Peru.
Bureau Veritas not only continued to certify Odebrecht, which was responsible for the world’s largest bribery scandal, but later rewarded an Odebrecht official with a directorship. The former Peruvian president Alan Garcia committed suicide to avoid arrest in the Odebrecht scandal, but the Peruvian government never investigated Bureau Veritas’ role in enabling Odebrecht.
SGS brazenly violates accreditation rules prohibiting a CB from offering “specific solutions” to a company’s EMS. On its website, SGS claims that after it provides a certificate, SGS will “determine your level of environmental competence and provide advice on how to achieve ongoing improvement.” SGS is accredited to ISO 17021-1 which directly prohibits a CB from performing such activities, which it deems “consulting.”
ANAB is supposed to ensure that its clients, including SGS, comply with ISO 17021-1; it must withdraw accreditation when presented with evidence of violations of that standard. Nevertheless, ANAB stopped issuing any withdrawals for any of its clients anywhere in the world for the past eight years.
The problem is not limited to Latin America. In Texas, the BP Oil office responsible for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico was certified by BSI. Despite lengthy investigations into that disaster, neither BSI nor its accreditation body were ever probed. An auditor with BSI reported to Oxebridge that he had personally audited the Deepwater Horizon rig and reported concerns but was overridden by the BSI home office.
The standard committee ISO CASCO writes the rules governing certification bodies, but accreditation bodies like ANAB manage that committee and resist efforts to tighten controls over the scheme. The International Accreditation Forum holds final authority over bodies like SGS and ANAB but also refuses to ensure the various bodies adhere to CASCO standards. It is expected that ANAB’s Vice President. Lori Gillespie, will soon take over as Chair of the IAF, ensuring even less oversight of ANAB and its clients, such as SGS.
The corruption by both the IAF accreditation scheme and Latin American governments cripples the ability to ensure that ISO-certified companies do not engage in deadly practices that risk human life and environmental disaster.
ISO has made “climate action” and environmental sustainability goals a large part of its recent marketing, but has done little in the way of practical measures to ensure such goals.