Ability to survive in China is the ‘real test of any business’

Lord Browne told the audience at Sheffield Hallam University that energy supplies have been the life-blood of economic development, and the real test of any business was whether it could survive in China.

He made the comments as he delivered the Sheffield Management Lecture, which is organised by Sheffield Business School, to 400 business leaders.

Taking as his topic – Responsibility, Risk and Reward: How business can manage its relationship with society – Lord Browne said corporate leaders must engage with society to define their agenda.

“Successful businesses really do look at ‘what if’ scenarios for the years ahead,’’ he said.

“Engagement is a repeat game – it happens again and again.

“In the long term, a business can only make a profit as long as a society allows it to do so.”

He said companies should listen to their detractors, because “most often it’s your critics and not your friends who give you the early warning about what’s going wrong”.

He said that Chinese business people were “very smart, very well educated and very driven”.

“My approach to China was always to have a partnership. That seemed to be a winning way,’’ he added.

He said the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico – which happened after Lord Browne stepped down as BP’s chief executive – was “in the grips of legal and regulatory activity”.

He told the audience there was “no such thing as risk-free energy”.