Just transition

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Woodside recognises the importance of a just transition to our employees, communities, Indigenous Peoples, customers and suppliers.

We recognise the priority attached to a just transition including in the Paris Agreement, as well as in the International Labour Organization Guidelines on Just Transition, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and in Ipieca’s Just Transition Principles.

The Paris Agreement emphasises “the intrinsic relationship that climate change actions, responses and impacts have with equitable access to sustainable development and eradication of poverty”.¹ It also takes into account “the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs”.

Transitions are not new to the energy sector. Our assets develop finite resources, with an intrinsic life cycle that moves through planning, construction, operations and finally decommissioning and closure. As we navigate the energy transition, our portfolio will continue to evolve. This may mean we enter or exit communities, adopt new technologies and develop additional workforce skills. We have policies to help us understand the social, economic and environmental impacts, including human rights, of our activities. This includes:

our Human Rights Policy in which we commit to respect the human rights of all people;
our Indigenous Communities Policy which recognises how we build respectful relationships and partnerships with Indigenous communities where we are active, in the areas where they are most interested in; and
our Sustainable Communities Policy which outlines our objective to contribute to host communities in ways that are of mutual benefit.

We contribute to a just transition by continuing to provide social and economic benefits. This includes through the supply of energy and minimising potential negative impacts on stakeholders affected by the transition including employees, communities, Indigenous Peoples, suppliers and customers.

Providing energy the world needs

The energy transition involves countries balancing energy security, affordability and emissions reductions goals. Natural gas such as that produced by Woodside provides the world’s growing population with a secure, reliable and affordable source of energy to support people’s lives and underpin economic development. In addition, it can support renewables by firming their intermittency while also directly replacing coal where infrastructure allows, which reduces overall emissions.

Woodside is also developing new products and lower-carbon services, in which we expect demand to grow in the energy transition. An example is the Beaumont New Ammonia Project, which will target conventional ammonia customers at start-up and will target lower-carbon ammonia customers in Europe and Asia when CCS is operational.² The potential applications for lower-carbon ammonia are in power generation, marine fuels and as an industrial feedstock, as it may displace higher-emitting fuels.

Engaging stakeholders

Proactively engaging with stakeholders is a principle embedded in our Sustainable Communities Policy. Our approach to understanding the potential impacts of our activities is informed by listening to and directly engaging employees and the communities where we operate. We also engage broadly with industry, government, civil society and our employees to learn and collaborate. This includes collaboration with energy industry peers as part of Ipieca’s Just Transition Task Force.

Developing our understanding of the impacts of our activities, both environmental and social including human rights, is a focus that is embedded into our Project Management Framework. Our approach focuses on sharing timely information about our activities, implementing mitigation and management measures, and understanding the expectations of the communities where we are active. We also seek to engage with affected communities of Indigenous Peoples in ways that are consistent with the principles of seeking Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Building a workforce for the future

To maintain a high-performing organisation in a changing industry, we have processes and policies in place to retain, retrain and redeploy our global workforce. This enables transition into new opportunities within Woodside as part of our decarbonisation efforts as well as building skills required for our future workforce.

Our people strategy acknowledges the importance of a clear pathway towards the skills, behaviours and attributes needed for the energy workforce of the future.

As part of life cycle management of our assets – from exploration and construction to operation and decommissioning – we undertake people planning to ensure we understand and address the changes in demand and skills as we transition to a lower-carbon economy.

We support our employees through the provision of fair wages and redundancy packages where there are no alternative employment opportunities identified. All employees also have access to our employee assistance program, which provides comprehensive support services.

Case studies

In 2024, we informed the government, community and our workforce of our decision to retire LNG Train 2 at the Karratha Gas Plant (KGP), to manage infrastructure in line with a natural decline in the North West Shelf’s (NWS) gas reserves. The NWS Joint Venture participants continue to explore opportunities to access third-party gas supplies to utilise available processing capacity at KGP.

At the same time, while NWS gas reserves are in decline, we are progressing growth at the adjacent Pluto LNG facility through the Scarborough gas field. We are also looking to develop alternate energy supplies and carbon management projects in the Karratha community.

During this time, we are communicating openly and transparently with our workforce, the community, suppliers and governments about a range of scenarios for the future of the NWS and KGP, to make this a shared journey of transition.

To achieve this, we are applying a place-based approach to better understand impacts on our people, their families and the broader community. This includes building on our understanding of social and economic impacts through formalised assessment and management planning processes. 

In 2025, we sought to build on our previous work in understanding our social and economic impacts in the local communities in the North West, with a Social Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA). The SEIA will help us better understand community and contractor dependencies, develop mitigation measures to manage our impacts and refresh our social investment strategy, with outcomes expected in 2026.

Navigating the transition to a lower-carbon economy relies on ongoing stakeholder engagement. A key initiative of Woodside’s current Reconciliation Action Plan is the establishment of the Indigenous Advisory Group roundtables. Roundtable participants provide recommendations and advice to Woodside on matters affecting Indigenous Peoples and communities at regional, national and international levels, informing our areas of focus, policy development and our engagement with the community. Woodside is committed to ensuring diverse perspectives are heard by inviting a wide range of subject matter experts to each roundtable.

Woodside’s Graduate Development Program and Navigator Leadership Program support our employees to continue learning and growing across a wide range of skills. We have robust processes to support people through changes in our skills requirements. This includes building breadth of knowledge and enabling open discussion of the energy transition through WECAN (the Australian-based climate focused Employee Impact Group, (EIG)) and Spark (the US-based sustainability focused EIG). Among the group’s initiatives is an annual climate forum which includes expert speakers, deep dives on relevant topics and question and answer panel sessions.

In Western Australia, Woodside is a member of the LNG Jobs Taskforce which includes working groups focused on Energy Workforce Capability, Technology and Decarbonisation and Decommissioning. Taskforce participants include representatives from the LNG industry, education providers and unions who come together to support the Western Australian workforce to meeting the needs of the energy industry now and into the future.

In Australia, we have long established meetings with Community Liaison Groups in Karratha and Exmouth. These group meetings provide an opportunity for community members to provide feedback on activities and discuss issues of common interest or concern. Key topics discussed at the meetings in 2025 included environment approvals, operator activity updates, housing, local content and community partnerships.

Explore our climate strategy

Just transition

Woodside recognises the importance of a just transition to our employees, communities, Indigenous Peoples, customers and suppliers.

Providing energy the world needs

Engaging stakeholders

Building a workforce for the future

Case studies

North West social transition management

Indigenous Advisory Group roundtable discussions

Building knowledge and capacity of our employees

Long-term community engagement in Australia

Explore climate-related content

Footnotes

Footnotes

Just transition

Woodside recognises the importance of a just transition to our employees, communities, Indigenous Peoples, customers and suppliers.

Providing energy the world needs

Engaging stakeholders

Building a workforce for the future

Case studies

North West social transition management

Indigenous Advisory Group roundtable discussions

Building knowledge and capacity of our employees

Long-term community engagement in Australia

Explore climate-related content

Footnotes

Footnotes

Sustainability links