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Circularity and waste

We look for ways to operate more efficiently, in line with our circularity framework, which we embedded in our Operating Management System in 2024

Our circularity framework sets out three principles:

  • Eliminate waste and pollution
  • Circulate products and materials
  • Regenerate nature

Circularity in 2025

In 2025 several of our businesses launched or continued projects aimed at improving circularity.

Our operations

In our Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye (AGT) operations we have developed an innovative way of safely reusing drilling fluids by using smart technology to cut the time required to assess suitability for reuse, from over an hour to just 15 minutes. Using this approach, we have recycled 20,000 barrels of drilling fluids since 2023, achieved cost savings of around $3 million and reduced the time vessels wait in dock while fluids are being tested.

 

In the US Archaea Energy started up eight new landfill plants in 2025, and it now has the capacity to produce around 18 million mmBtu of RNG per year from organic waste materials.

 

bp bioenergy (Brazil) reuses all its major industrial residues as organic agricultural inputs. This reduces the amounts of chemical fertilizers used in our sugarcane fields. In 2025 the business also provided 1.4TWh of renewable energy from bagasse.

 

Our Lingen refinery in Germany completed a co-processing trial, using cashew nutshell liquid as a feedstock to create a lower lifecycle carbon diesel replacement for trucks and fleets.

Mobility and convenience

We are working with organizations and charities who can take and use unwanted food and help avoid food waste. For example, in Germany, bp and Aral collaborated with Too Good to Go to save around 780 tonnes of food in 2025.

 

Castrol’s MORECircular offer continued growing in 2025. Launched with our partner Safety-Kleen, it diverts used oil to re-refining and offers customers products made using re-refined base oils (RRBO). Castrol has expanded this offer and is now running a similar programme in Türkiye and pilots in the UK and Germany. In 2025 around 3 million litres of used oil were sent for re-refining through the programme.

Waste in 2025

We adopt a lifecycle approach to waste management, to avoid and reduce waste from our operations and to reuse materials.

 

We disposed of around 300kt of hazardous and non-hazardous waste from our operated businesses in 2025, a 17% increase from 2024 and we recycled or recovered around 200kt of waste, a 14% increase from 2024. Our recycling and recovery ratea was 40%.

Footnote

Recycling and recovery rate calculated as: (quantity of waste (or exempted waste) sent for recycling or recovery)/(total quantity of waste managed). Excludes Drilling, Completion, Wells and Intervention (DCWI) chemicals, fluids and drill cuttings discarded from our DCWI operations as well as waste from remediation sites.