Environmental Management
We place great emphasis on continually improving our environmental management practices and performance.
There is little doubt that our activities may unavoidably impact the environment. A key component in understanding the potential impacts is to systematically assess significant environmental risks and issues. As part of this, potential environmental risks and issues are taken into full consideration in our Investment processes for approving new ventures and expansion of current operations.
The key driver for environmental management in the Company is our aspirational goal of Zero Harm to the environment. Our efforts in this regard form the basis of the environmental component of our ‘triple bottom line’ and thus contribute to our commitment to sustainable development. The strategy we have developed to meet our environmental goals and objectives is illustrated in the diagram below.
Environment strategy map
Embedding environmental considerations in our businesses through the appropriate valuation of environmental costs and benefits is fundamental to our environmental strategy. Hence we are seeking to raise the organisation’s awareness and understanding of the economic and competitive opportunities presented by good environmental performance. Central to this journey are improvements in eco-efficiency and product stewardship. The environment strategy map illustrates that, as we move up the curve, our environmental footprint is reduced, allowing for competitive advantage through the establishment of responsible entrepreneurship. This may involve engaging our customers and suppliers in ways to reduce their environmental footprint, thereby strengthening our business partnerships and consequently improving business performance across our value chain.
Our environmental management during the reporting year remained focused on three main areas:
- Management processes and programs. See our section on Environmental management systems.
- External environmental issues, which often have implications as drivers of change in the internal management programs and processes. These issues include emerging new regulation (in particular in the European Union), land access and climate change.
- Operation-level environmental issues, such as tailings and hydrocarbon management, which could have a significant effect on the Company because of their potential to impact the environment, to adversely affect the Company’s reputation or to substantially increase the cost required to address the issues.
Refer to the following sections to review our progress in environmental management.
- Environmental management systems
- Closure planning
- Emergency preparedness and response
- Climate change
- Biodiversity
Also refer to our progress with regards to the Product stewardship target across our businesses.
Environmental management systems
Significant progress has been made in the implementation of environmental management systems across our sites. All our operations are accredited to the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (note that accreditation is not required at exploration and development projects, sites being divested, closed sites and offices). Company-wide professional networks have been established to deal with critical areas of environmental management practice including greenhouse gases and closure.
During the year, we improved our environmental incident reporting intranet site. This enables us to better capture information related to environmental incidents, to provide relevant and timely learnings and to better track trends in performance over time.
The key issues that will drive our strategic priorities for the coming year include increasing our focus on the process of identifying and dealing with environmental risks and liabilities (such as tailings management), development of a Company-wide water strategy, implementation of the Company-wide Closure Standard and establishment of the next set of Company-wide environmental targets. We will also place greater emphasis on assessing significant impacts on the natural environment and biodiversity arising from our activities.
Closure planning
Closure of an operation poses risks and opportunities that need to be identified, assessed and managed. During the reporting period, we developed a Company-wide Closure Standard. The Closure Standard presents a set of consistent principles and procedures to formally recognise and coordinate the Company’s approach to planning for, providing for and executing closure. The Standard provides a clear, systematic and consistent set of requirements to ensure that closure plans achieve Company standards, that cost estimates reflect risks and opportunities, and that plans are regularly reviewed. The principles set out in the Closure Standard will be an integral part of our investment and governance processes.
For a better understanding of our challenges in this area, refer to our sustainability challenge on Sustainable community development and closure.
Emergency preparedness and response
In line with the requirements of our HSEC Management Standard 14 (Crisis and Emergency Management), our businesses and sites have emergency response procedures in place to deal with a wide range of possible crisis and emergency scenarios, such as oil spills, failure of water pond dams, fires and explosion, chemical spills and other potential environmental incidents. The procedures describe the actions to be taken and the allocation of responsibilities in relation to these actions, and typically contain communication protocols, control procedures and media and stakeholder management procedures, including escalation communication requirements. Sites and businesses periodically conduct emergency scenario simulations and drills. Emergency preparedness and response are coordinated and maintained at a Company-wide level through our Crisis Management Group.
Climate change
We are working on activities related to climate change risks and opportunities in a number of ways. These include reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of our operations in line with a target, requiring sites to develop GHG management and energy conservation plans, pricing carbon in investment decision-making, funding research and development activities and collaborating with customers.
Greenhouse gas management programs and energy conservation plans have been developed at all of our sites with annual emissions greater than 100 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
In 2002, we set a target to achieve an improvement in the greenhouse gas intensity of our operations’ emissions (including emissions from purchased electricity) per unit of production of 5 per cent over the period to 30 June 2007. To date, we are ahead of schedule on this target.
We are developing relationships with counterparts in the emerging carbon credit market in Europe that will facilitate the inclusion of carbon credits in our future sales of greenhouse gas intensive products into Europe and Japan.
We are working with our customers to improve energy efficiency in the downstream consumption of our Energy Coal products as well as promoting activities to help deliver low or zero-emission coal technologies. This is mainly through institutions such as the World Coal Institute and the Australian Coal Association.
Carbon pricing sensitivity analysis is considered in our decisions on new projects and investments that would emit more than 100 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per annum. This analysis includes a range of prices for developed and developing countries over an extended period of time. In addition, our Energy Coal CSG has included the potential implications of greenhouse gas emissions regulation in its base case supply and demand forecasts and in its business strategy. This is due to the potential importance of such regulation in relation to the future demand for coal.
For a better understanding of our challenges in this area, refer to our sustainability challenge on Greenhouse gas emissions.
Biodiversity
The intent of our biodiversity management is to recognise and manage the values of biodiversity that may be adversely affected by our activities. During the year, we researched relevant biodiversity metrics that can be used to monitor and measure the success of our land management and rehabilitation strategies. Following an extensive review of literature and current industry practice, it was found that indicators specific to the resource sector are still in the early stages of development. Thus, development of readily measurable indicators that accurately reflect trends in complex and dynamic ecological systems is a major challenge to us. During the coming year, we will continue refining our approach to biodiversity management, including development of appropriate biodiversity management plans.
Without systematic assessment and management, there are potential risks that biodiversity values and impacts will not be recognised. To this end, the majority of our sites incorporate biodiversity considerations into their overall environmental management system. For example, our Yabulu Refinery in Queensland, Australia, includes an ecological health monitoring program as part of its overall environmental management plan. At Zululand Anthracite Colliery, South Africa, biodiversity monitoring and assessment of wetlands within the vicinity of the site are regularly conducted.
Additionally, some operations, such as at Mineração Rio do Norte in Brazil, form partnerships with academia and research institutes to preserve and quantify the generic variability of species of economic, social and environmental importance. Saraji, our coal operation in Queensland, Australia, participated in the ACARP (Australian Coal Association Research Program) project for research into the construction of roosting structures for threatened bat species.
For another example, refer to our case study: Conserving biodiversity at the Ravensthorpe Nickel Project.
For a better understanding of our challenges in this area, refer to our sustainability challenge on Access to resources.
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