Former US vice president Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth has heightened public awareness of the dangers of global warming. How is Murray & Roberts responding to the call on industry to limit its impact on the environment?

Murray & Roberts has extended the principle of zero harm to all aspects of its business, including the social and natural environment in which it operates.

A risk based approach, adopted from August 2006 and guided by international standards (ISO14001 Environmental Management System), ensures that the management of environmental issues is governed by a philosophy of continual improvement. Currently, 30% of the Group’s operating entities have certification or are in the process of attaining certification to this standard and the intention is to roll it out across the whole Group.

Key performance areas and indicators have been instituted to measure environmental risks and manage them down to acceptable levels. These are:

• Environmental or pollution incidents – uncontrolled releases, leaks, breaks and spills to air, surface water, ground water and land
• Air emission testing and targets
• Contraventions of local or national regulations, or client plans, such as environmental impact assessments, together with fines and penalties imposed
• Non-conformance registers and targets

The three operating environments within Murray & Roberts – construction, mining and manufacturing (fixed facility sites) – have uniquely different environmental impacts. These different impacts are highlighted using a Source, Pathway, Receptor model to identify potential sources of emissions and the pathways they travel along to reach a receptor (eg. a river or ground water to people/downstream communities.) Once the source and pathway have been identified, preventive and corrective measures can be applied to protect receptors and close pathways.

Using this methodology it was established that air and effluent emissions remain the greatest risk for fixed facility sites; dust and environmental noise pollution for the construction environment; and soil and ground water contamination for mining. Other than at the fixed facility sites, group environmental practice is commonly integrated into clients’ own environmental management objectives which are usually based on environmental impact assessments for individual projects.

An emergent environmental risk is that of climate change and its implications for existing processes and materials used by Murray & Roberts companies. South Africa, as a non-Annex country, is not obliged to uphold the Kyoto Protocol reduction requirements for the current period (2008-2012). However, with increasing carbon emissions, significant global pressure will be applied to South Africa – and its corporations – to reduce the country’s carbon footprint. South Africa is currently rated as the 14th biggest carbon dioxide producer in the world by total tons of greenhouse gases.

This year, Murray & Roberts is implementing a climate change strategy to measure its carbon footprint in terms of World Business Council on Sustainable Development standards and develop reporting requirements for direct carbon dioxide emissions.

Murray & Roberts is taking a proactive approach to managing the impacts climate change will have on its industry, and the strategy is consistent with the Group’s approach to Stop.Think, risk and HSE management.
Stop.Think, the campaign launched last year to improve safety awareness and strive for zero harm in the workplace, has provided the platform through which Murray & Roberts can engage the HSE challenges it faces.

Murray & Roberts will initiate the climate change strategy by measuring its carbon footprint as this will reveal where its efforts need to be concentrated. There are a number of actions individuals and businesses in the Group can implement immediately to improve energy efficiency, limit electricity usage and reduce travel.

Following the establishment of the carbon footprint, meaningful targets, efficiency upgrades and reduction strategies can be implemented. Future developments include expanding system boundaries to include scope 3 (indirect, embodied, and product) emissions, process and product modifications to low carbon alternatives, benign design solutions, and clean development mechanism (CDM) projects.

Climate change does present certain threats to Murray & Roberts, but there are opportunities that can be developed. The approach to reduce the risks and enhance the opportunities lies in ensuring that the Group’s activities do no harm and concurrently create value for all affected stakeholders. - By Tyron Botha, responsible for the Murray & Roberts risk based approach to health, safety and the environment

What is climate change?
The climate of the world varies from one decade to another, and a changing climate is natural and expected. However, there is a well-founded concern that the unprecedented human industrial and development activities of the past two centuries have caused changes over and above natural variation.

Climate change is the natural cycle through which the earth and its atmosphere accommodate change in the amount of energy received from the sun. The climate goes through warm and cold periods, taking hundreds of years to complete one cycle. Changes in temperature also influence the rainfall but the biosphere is able to adapt to a changing climate if these changes occur over centuries. Unfortunately, human intervention is currently causing the climate to change too fast. (Climate models predict that the mean air temperature over South Africa will increase by an estimated 2˚C over the next century). Plants and animals may not adapt as quickly to this rapid climate change as humans can and therefore, the whole ecosystem is in danger.

The global climate system is driven by energy from the sun. Several gases in the atmosphere act to trap the energy from the sun, thus warming the earth. These gases are called greenhouse gases and the process is the greenhouse effect. Without this there would be no life on earth. Human activities over the last 200 years, particularly the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) and the clearing of forests, have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is likely to lead to more solar radiation being trapped, which in turn will lead to the earth’s surface warming up – the enhanced greenhouse effect.

The enhanced greenhouse effect can be slowed down by following two guidelines: 1. Increase sinks and 2. Decrease sources of greenhouse gases. A sink is a process which removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. For example, a growing tree where one did not previously exist provides a sink for carbon dioxide, because the tree extracts carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. A source is a place or activity from which greenhouse gases are emitted. This can be a process such as coal burning or a location such as cultivated fields.

What is the Kyoto Protocol?
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol resolved to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, on a global scale. Annex 1 Countries ratifying the Protocol must comply with the following requirements:

• Limit their greenhouse gas emissions to the amounts assigned to them
• Implement climate change policies
• Enhance energy efficiency
• Limit emissions in the waste and transport sectors
• Protect sinks
• Phase out market instruments that are counter-productive to the aims of the Protocol
• Promote sustainable forms of agriculture and relevant research
  The Kyoto protocol set limits for the Annex 1 signatories to reduce emissions based on 1990 levels when the protocol was first drafted. The emission reductions are set to be implemented between 2008 and 2012.

Information supplied by the South African Weather Service.