Two workers dressed in bright orange protective coveralls walking side by side in an industrial facility. They are wearing white helmets, gloves, and ear protection, and each carries a backpack.

Navigate to:

Report

4 min read

• May 5, 2026

Supporting a just transition

As we work to be a leader in a thoughtful energy transition, we will continue to develop our workforce, empower local economic growth, mitigate impacts of our operations, and engage with and support our communities.

Report

4 min read

• May 5, 2026

Our company has been in a continuous state of evolution and transition since it was founded.

Having a workforce capable of developing and leading new businesses to meet society’s evolving needs is how we have prospered for more than 140 years.

Image United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to this content. — **United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to this content.**

Our approach

Where there is energy poverty, there is poverty. To be just, any approach to an energy transition must address society’s fundamental need for energy. ExxonMobil will continue to raise awareness of the consequences of energy poverty, currently affecting about half of the world's population.

Guided by principles supporting a just transition, like those of Ipieca and the International Labour Organization, ExxonMobil aims to:

Respect human rights in our operations.
Create value for customers, partners, and communities.
Provide employees with unrivaled opportunities for growth with impactful work.
Manage environmental and socioeconomic impacts throughout asset lifecycles.
Engage with employees and communities in efforts to improve quality of life and foster mutual understanding and trust.

Positioned to lead in an energy transition

Sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions require a thoughtful and comprehensive approach. One that:

Balances benefits and costs.
Is sensitive to society’s needs.
Avoids economic hardship, market disruptions, and energy and product shortages.

As we work to do this, we consider the impact on workers, communities, supply chains, consumers, and broader economic development.

Our Global Outlook estimates that more than 4 billion people still lack access to reliable energy for housing, infrastructure, jobs, and mobility. Providing for these basic energy needs is a must to meet the United Nations’ goal to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” And as a society, it's our challenge to meet these needs while reducing emissions globally and managing the impacts of these actions on people.

Our culture of innovation and many decades of experience, enhanced through continuous training, are important competitive advantages. The integration of our business, and the flexibility it gives us to pursue new technologies and markets, is another.

In this regard, we have always been engaged in what is now referred to as a “just transition.” Our employees are well positioned to play meaningful roles in a traditional energy business that will be vital for decades to come AND play an equally important role in the lower carbon emissions portfolio we are hard at work building.

In many cases, the “transition” is minimal, such as moving from conventional fuels to biofuels. In others, we use our capabilities to innovate new processes, like drilling for lithium using our experience with oil or natural gas. In areas like carbon capture and storage, we are expanding efforts we’ve been working on for more than 40 years and supporting our workforce as this part of our business grows.

Our commitment to our employees and the communities in which we live and work has been on display since the 19th century – proving to our employees and their friends, families, and neighbors that we care about them, value the work they do, and are committed to developing them for the duration of their careers. At ExxonMobil, that is good business, and the just thing to do.

Applying our approach

Informed by relevant, globally recognized principles, such as those of the International Labour Organization, that support a “just transition,” we’re working to provide energy and products people need, lead in reducing our own and others’ greenhouse gas emissions, and deliver on our strategic objectives.

We operate facilities and market products across the globe. Our standards, systems, processes and programs help us to understand and manage risks and opportunities within the unique context of each location, from developing economies focused on energy security to communities with established workforces seeking new opportunities.

We invest in and support employees for the long-term. We also work to contribute to the progress and prosperity of our communities. Our work to build and maintain supply chains in the places we operate is one example. We regularly engage and collaborate with industry, communities, employees, educational institutions, governments, businesses, and NGOs to support these objectives.

In our Low Carbon Solutions business and across the company, we apply our integrated environmental and socioeconomic management approach. This supports our efforts to proactively identify and address potential socioeconomic risks and opportunities. We update our assessments and management plans as needed to reflect changes to our operations or characteristics of a community.

Our employees

Many of the capabilities and skills of today’s workforce are critical for an energy transition. In fact, our work to reduce GHG emissions is largely grounded in the transferable skillsets already present in our traditional businesses.

We source talent from nearly all countries in which we operate and have over 34 nationalities represented in our executive population. We focus on identifying leadership talent early and developing them throughout their careers to reach their highest potential.

“Meaningful development” is one of our five strategic priorities. We have a proven, long-term commitment to developing employees. We are proud of this commitment and are determined to maintain it.

We are organized around three integrated core businesses: Upstream, Product Solutions, and Low Carbon Solutions. This structure provides employees with greater access to growth opportunities, broadening their experiences and capabilities for future roles.

Our Low Carbon Solutions business includes employees with decades of experience at our company or elsewhere in the oil and natural gas industry, as well as functional experts who bring outside-in thinking. New employees are offered onboarding and technical training, and leaders within the business line host regular sessions open to all employees designed to increase awareness of objectives and performance, provide expertise on a variety of topics related to the business, and seek feedback from the broader workforce.

Our unique, career-oriented approach gives many employees the opportunity to experience multiple roles during their careers. In 2025, more than 11,500 employees took on a new job role providing an opportunity to grow and develop new skills and capabilities. One-third of leaders moved into new roles in 2025, demonstrating a strong talent pipeline and reinforcing a culture where growth and advancement are both possible and expected.

Our approach includes the ways we support employees when we acquire, divest, or convert an asset, for any reason. For example, when we paused our project in Baytown, Texas, to produce lower-emission hydrogen, the dozens of employees who had been working on the project were assigned elsewhere in our business.

In 2025, our company-wide survey continued to demonstrate employee engagement and pride in being part of ExxonMobil, as well as employee understanding of our purpose and strategy, our progress in fostering a productive and inclusive environment, and our efforts to strengthen our culture. Our survey showed that engagement is up almost 10%, over the last three years.

Additional information on our programs can be found in our annual Investing in People report.

SPOTLIGHT

Leveraging core capabilities and skills in emerging areas

Jun Shi, Lead process researcher at ExxonMobil

Solving the world’s energy and climate challenges will require minds skilled in chemistry, material science, engineering, and process development. One of the most promising emerging technologies is Direct Air Capture (DAC), which can capture CO₂ directly from the atmosphere – potentially offsetting emissions from hard-to-abate sectors.

Jun Shi, DAC lead process researcher, supports our process development and scale-up of the DAC project, which brought a pilot prototype online in 2024.

DAC creates a truly carbon-negative solution, using adsorbent materials to trap and hold CO₂ molecules directly from the atmosphere. At its heart, DAC is an engineering challenge.

For more information on direct air capture, see our Advancing Climate Solutions report.

“For a chemical engineer like me, it’s thrilling to tackle a real-life challenge with a technology that has significant potential benefits for society. The challenges that today’s generation of engineers address might differ from traditional chemical engineering problems, but the fundamentals are the same – and the opportunities to make a difference are huge.”

Our communities

We believe that respecting human rights, managing community impacts, and making valued social investments are essential to our business success.

Our operations have the potential to impact communities both positively and negatively. To address this, we regularly engage with a wide range of stakeholders who are representative of the community to seek out opportunities and address their concerns.

We also identify and consult with potentially vulnerable communities to understand possible barriers to their active engagement. We work to tailor our engagements to be locally and culturally appropriate, providing accessible and inclusive channels for communication.

Inclusive engagement helps us to be responsive to concerns and opportunities. Where appropriate, we integrate the results into our efforts. We conduct engagements like these throughout the life of our assets. This helps us avoid or reduce risks, enhance benefits, support investments, avoid delays, remedy impacts, and embrace opportunities at the local level.

Additional information can be found in the Managing socioeconomic impacts section of our Sustainability Report.

Our supply chain

We understand the importance of building and maintaining a qualified and competitive supply chain where we operate. As with our workforce, many of the goods and services essential for our business today are the same ones needed in the future.

As part of our supply chain portfolio, we buy goods and services from local suppliers and build their capabilities through local programs to increase competition and innovation.

This approach helps to make a positive impact on communities by building long-term, local economic capacity in support of a just energy transition. It also contributes to the objectives of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.

Additional information can be found in the Contributing to the well-being of communities section of our Sustainability Report.

Industry collaboration

We have a long history of collaborating with universities, national laboratories, industries, and companies of all sizes around the world. We continuously seek new opportunities where each participant brings unique skills and capabilities to support the development of current and future workers and suppliers.

Many of our collaborations with universities and others are described in our Advancing Climate Solutions, Sustainability, and Investing in People reports. We also leverage the scale of our industry through participation in trade associations and by expanding high-quality collaborations with local community and technical colleges.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is an example of an industry association investing in the future of energy. API offers a broad range of training and certifications, and we consult on program designs and curriculum development in support of the current and the next generation of workers.

Katherine Gilbert, Ipieca Just Transition Task Force Co-Chair and ExxonMobil Sr. Principal and Manager, Socioeconomic and Human Rights.

ExxonMobil chairs the Just Transition Task Force within Ipieca, which is “the global oil and natural gas association for advancing environmental and social performance.” The task force supports the industry’s participation in international collaboration to transition to a lower-carbon world in a way that’s just and fair for workforces, communities, and consumers.

In 2025, the fifth edition of Ipieca’s Sustainability Reporting Guidance was released, featuring an updated social module shaped by a just transition perspective. The revision adds new reporting components for businesses to consider focused on just transition planning and implementation, including just transition indicators. It also weaves just transition themes into several existing social and human rights topics.

"Companies in our industry operate in so many places around the world, each with unique challenges and opportunities in the area of human rights. This guidance update helps to provide a common framework for energy companies to consider as they develop reports on strategic approaches, processes or activities they may be implementing in support of a just energy transition.”