The management of offshore platforms at the end of their production phase is a complex issue for technological, socioeconomic, ecological and safety reasons. The decommissioning or reconversion of offshore platforms in the context of a circular economy (CE) will lead to new knowledge acquisition, changing values and changing behaviours towards sustainability consistent with the 'new' business objectives. Multiuse platforms at sea (MUPSs) represent an interesting solution for development of marine infrastructures, including areas in which to start and develop various creative economic activities that are in harmony with the needs of environmental protection including renewable energy, sea shellfish farming, decarbonisation plants, tourism, and recreation. Particularly, the research activity focused on a deep literature review of offshore platform decommissioning and sustainable business model (SBM) in a CE context. This allowed us to access the sustainable business model canvas (SBMC), a conceptual tool that represents a holistic view of the different managerial multiuse options and their social and environmental impacts. Besides, to test the SBMC, we adopt an empirical analysis by semi-structured questionnaires given to a sample of stakeholders in the decommissioning industry. The methodology was enriched by interviews with key informants to better investigate the business ecosystem and the feasibility of decommissioning applied to the case of an Italian offshore platform located in the Adriatic Sea. This article aims to contribute to supporting SBMs development following a holistic approach in relationship with all stakeholders and propose a multi-criteria decision-making analysis for evaluating and comparing alternative decommissioning options.
The growing complexity of environmental challenges has progressively led to the emergence of Sustainable Business Models (SBMs) able to embed economic, environmental, and social flows in a unified value network. All sectors are demanding innovative and sustainable solutions, including the oil and gas industry, which aims to address the issues about the decommissioning of offshore platforms. However, although the relevant literature highlighted the potentialities related to a multi-reuse of these structures, the effect of Sustainable Decommissioning (SD) on macro-environmental factors is still an open question. Based on these considerations, this study follows a Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental (PESTLE) analysis according to semi-structured interviews conducted with oil and gas key informants and stakeholders in the Italian context. The results of the analysis can provide a novel thinking for addressing the challenges related to a sustainable decommissioning of offshore platforms and shed light on the importance of synergistic efforts by local entrepreneurship and institutional arrangements to combine economic and environmental sustainability with social needs. This paper can contribute to the emerging field of sustainable business models related to the decommissioning of offshore platforms and suggests avenues for future research.
Purpose of the paper:The decommissioning of offshore platforms represents a significant and controversial challenge that has gained attention over the years due to its environmental, social, and economic impact. This work aims to investigate stakeholders' perceptions regarding the future of offshore platforms and to explore dimensions of sustainability related to decommissioning.Methodology: An analysis was carried out based on two rounds of empirical inquiry, a range of primary data collected through multiple-choice questionnaires and in-depth interviews.Findings: The analysis shows that stakeholders perceive reuse as an opportunity to minimise the impacts according to an environmental, economic, and social perspective. While the multipurpose platform represents an opportunity for the future, it also presents challenges. Research limitations: The study relies only on qualitative analysis techniques and on a limited sample and geographical area.Practical implications: The analysis offers several insights into the decommissioning scenario according to a sustainable and circularity perspective and contributes to the decommissioning debate by providing information about decommissioning programs, stakeholders' impacts, and future planning considerations. Originality of the paper:The study contributes knowledge to the field and useful managerial insights, highlighting stakeholders' perception in the Italian context and exploring dimensions of sustainability and main SDGs related to the issue.
Purpose This study aims to investigate the collective perception regarding the future of offshore platforms and frame the main categories of meanings associated by the community with the investigated phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach A data driven approach has been conducted. The collection of the peoples’ opinions has been realized on two specific social network communities as follows: Twitter and Instagram. The text mining processes carried out a sentiment and a cluster analysis. Findings The sentiment analysis of the most frequent words has been shown. The following four main homogeneous categories of words are emerged in relation to the decommissioning of offshore platforms: technological areas, green governance (GG), circular economy and socio-economic sphere. Research limitations/implications The alternative use of the offshore platforms, including tourism initiatives, aquaculture, alternative energy generation, hydrogen storage and environmental research, could improve the resilience of communities by offering the development of new jobs and the growth of local and innovative green businesses. Practical implications The adoption of a circular model and GG initiatives aims to limit the input of resources and energy, minimize waste and losses, adopt a sustainable approach and realize new social and territorial value. Originality/value The analysis underlines the importance to adopt a systems perspective, which takes into account the social, economic and environmental system as a whole, the different phenomena that occur and the variety of categories of stakeholders, from users to local governments that participate in the territorial development.
Over the years, value co-creation practices have become increasingly more important by supporting collaborative interactions and the achievement of sustainable and mutual competitive advantage between the ecosystem’ actors. In this direction, the oil and gas industry is proposing a sustainable re-use of offshore platforms based on value co-creation and resources exchange between the actors involved. According to this consideration, this work aims at re-reading the decommissioning of offshore platforms in the light of value co-creation practices, trying to capture the factors that governments and companies can leverage to pursue a sustainable development of local communities. To reach this goal, this work follows an exploratory approach by using, in particular, the case study. Specifically, one of the most notably projects in the Italian context have been chosen, the Paguro platform, in order to provide empirical insights into the nature of these value co-creation processes. Five value co-creation practices have been identified which highlight the importance of synergistic efforts of institutions, companies and technology-based platforms for improving the ability to co-create and capture value in the process of decommissioning. This exploratory work establishes a foundation for future research, and offers theoretical and managerial guidance in this increasingly important area.
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