Chevron’s commitment to LGBT inclusion energizes

Chevron has a strong track record of support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It was one of the first large companies to offer benefits to same sex partners and was the first energy company to include sexual orientation and identification to its nondiscrimination policies. Chevron was also the first energy company to become a corporate partner of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and was named to the inaugural “Best of the Best” list of corporations in America committed to diversity and inclusion across all community sectors.

At the 2015 NGLCC annual conference, Robin Dillard, Publisher of BEQ Pride magazine, sat down with Chevron’s Jose Calderon and Dave Feldman to talk about Chevron’s LGBT Employee Resource Group an how Chevron is embracing the LGBT community.

BEQ: How did your relationship with NGLCC come about? What are you doing to expand Chevron’s role in getting more suppliers into the supply chain? How does that work?

Dave Feldman: I will start by saying that Chevron’s involvement with the LGBT community is longstanding. I remember – you know, one of the pleasures of being in this role is to be able to dispel some of the rumors of what people think about a company like Chevron. We’ve actually been upfront in many ways in terms of our support and advocacy for the LGBT community. I remember when I started 30 years ago, Chevron was among the first companies to offer benefits to same sex partners. We were the first energy company to add LGBT sexual orientation and identification to our nondiscrimination policies. We have a global HIV policy. So our involvement with the NGLCC is really just sort of a natural progression to that thinking and that way of doing things at Chevron.

We got started in this really through our affiliation with the Human Rights Campaign. The HRC has a Corporate Equality Index on which Chevron has scored 100% since inception. When the CEI included supplier diversity measures, we were quick to recognize a partnership with the NGLCC as a means to fulfill that requirement. We were the first energy company to become a corporate partner with the NGLCC. We’ve updated our systems and our literature to include LGBT as part of our procurement policy. And our partnership with the NGLCC has gone a long way to help us meet those obligations, which, in general, include your having a community retreat or having a supply chain which reflects the communities where we live and work.

BEQ: That’s important to point out. The 100% on the corporate equality index, supporting out and equal, and having employee resource groups, which Jose is a member of, and also philanthropically what the companies are doing across the board. You are able to really affect change and really impact families and Main Street just by being who you are, who you always were. Jose, as an employee, tell me what that means to you and what you are doing in the ERG – what does it mean to have a brand like Chevron be who they are and then you can be who you are?

Jose Calderon: It means a lot and it really translates into your performance at work. A company that has the policies to support individuals for who they are just is fantastic. It is really, really great from an ERG perspective. In supporting NGLCC, one of our goals is to insure that there is representation from the ERG in conferences like this and pretty much support supplier diversity efforts in engaging with local suppliers and see what we can do.

For more information about Chevron’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, visit www.chevron.com/corporate-responsibility/people/diversity-inclusion.