Absurdity
Oil Company Wins Environmental Award Created and Funded by Oil Company
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
HOUSTON, TX, Meridian Energy Solutions announced Thursday that it had won the Golden Watershed Award for Environmental Excellence, an honor the company created in 2021, funds entirely through a Meridian subsidiary, and administers through a seven-member selection committee whose members are appointed annually by Meridian's Vice President of Public Affairs.
Meridian beat out four other nominees: a regional pipeline operator, a deepwater drilling consortium, two offshore exploration firms, and, according to the official program, Meridian again under a slightly different internal division name.
"We are humbled," said Meridian CEO Douglas Prath, reading from remarks that were also written by Meridian's communications department. "This recognition affirms what we have always believed: that Meridian is, at its core, an environmental company that also does oil."
The Golden Watershed Award was established, per its founding charter, to "celebrate industry leadership in ecological stewardship." The charter was drafted by Meridian's legal team. The founding gala was catered by a Meridian hospitality vendor. The golden watershed on the trophy is not a real watershed.
The $50,000 prize, described in award materials as a "generous contribution to the winner's green initiatives," will be transferred from the Golden Watershed Foundation's operating account to Meridian's community investment fund, both of which are managed by the same Meridian comptroller, who describes the transaction in his own notes as a "lateral."
Selection committee chair and Meridian Senior Director of Stakeholder Engagement, Patricia Guhl, said the decision was reached after a rigorous review process. The review process took eleven minutes and was conducted over lunch, for which Meridian was also billed.
"We looked very hard at the field," Guhl said. "There were some genuinely strong candidates. In the end, the numbers spoke for themselves." She declined to share the numbers. There are no numbers. The award has no scoring rubric.
Environmental advocacy groups responded to the announcement with the specific kind of silence that precedes a very long statement.
Dr. Renata Osei of the nonprofit Clean Futures Coalition called the award "a masterclass in what the industry refers to as proactive narrative architecture and what the rest of us refer to as lying with a plaque."
Meridian disputed this characterization in a press release that referred to Dr. Osei as "one stakeholder perspective among many" and noted that Meridian has planted over four thousand trees since 2019, a figure it has cited in eleven separate press releases, all of which went out on days when Meridian's quarterly emissions reports were also published.
The ceremony was held at the Meridian Energy Solutions Center for Sustainable Innovation, which is a conference room on the fourteenth floor of Meridian's Houston headquarters. A banner read "Congratulations to This Year's Winner." It was printed before the votes were counted, which is also when it was ordered, which is also when the winner was decided, which is also when the award was created, if you go back far enough.
Meridian's stock rose 0.4 percent on the news.
Prath closed his remarks by announcing that Meridian would be expanding the Golden Watershed program next year to include a Lifetime Achievement category, for which, he noted, Meridian "would be a natural fit."
The application window opens in January. Applicants must be sponsored by a current award committee member. Committee membership is by invitation only.
The invitation comes from Douglas Prath.
The trophy is displayed in the lobby next to a wall of framed Meridian press releases and a small plaque that reads, "Our Commitment to the Planet Is Ongoing." Below it, in smaller letters: "Meridian Energy Solutions, 2021, All Rights Reserved."
This is satire. The events and quotes are invented and none of it is real news.