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RSG programs are intended in large part to boost investor confidence by way of “strategic storytelling,” as one industry consulting firm put it. RSG is a new term used in the natural gas industry to describe voluntary reporting initiatives, centered largely around emissions of the powerful climate pollutant methane, but which may also include other criteria such as air quality, water stewardship, land impacts, and “ community interests.” Think of RSG as attempting to create an oil and gas equivalent of fair-trade labels for clothing or green building standards for architecture.

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Instead, we suggest a new ratio for more accurately calculating fracked gas’s full impacts so that the fossil fuel industry can’t use RSG standards as a thin green veil for continuing its polluting practices. We argue that right now it’s an inadequate and ill-defined measurement of the overall ecological and social burden imposed by fracking. Nevertheless, the industry has begun a new wave of branding around “Responsibly Sourced Natural Gas,” or RSG. Drillers are using ever-increasing amounts of water and sand in order to produce the same volume of gas, with a corresponding rise in the levels of solid and liquid waste created. The fracked natural gas industry has never been the most responsible or efficient consumer of resources. By Ted Auch, PhD, FracTracker Alliance, with contributions from Shannon Smith of FracTracker Alliance

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