Emphasizing Environmental Management and Monitoring - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 470

FIGURE 10.6
Ways and Means to Reduce Health,
Safety, and Environmental Incidents

EHS
Incident
Occurrence

Engineering

An environmental management system
is a valuable tool to improve the envi-
ronmental performance of a mine, but
it is not the sole solution to environ-
mental excellence.

Systems

Behaviour

Time

role in examining their practices, and then determining how their impacts should best
be managed ( Case 10.3 ). This approach encourages creative and relevant solutions from
the organization itself. The main limitation of any management system, however, is that
human behaviour cannot be changed by systems and procedures.
Figure 10.6 illustrates that an environmental management system is a valuable tool to
improve the environmental performance of a mine, but it is not the sole solution. The
i rst step to environmental excellence is responsible mine planning and engineering; the
environmental impact assessment is the vehicle to do this. The second step towards success
is having appropriate management systems in place during operation. In the long-term,
however, environmental excellence is based on a company's culture and on human behav-
iour. The point is that neither engineering nor systems can replace leadership and commit-
ment. Buy-in from senior management is essential, eventually trickling down through the
organization, and thereby developing a culture of care and environmental responsibility.
Although the implementation of an EMS is essentially a voluntary initiative, it can also
become an effective tool for governments to protect the environment as it can assist regula-
tion. For example, regulatory systems can encourage organizations to use an EMS to meet
standards, by providing incentives for strong environmental performance. Likewise, organi-
zations can use an EMS to ensure that their performance is within regulatory requirements,
and to keep ahead of more stringent regulations which might be introduced in the future.
Internationally, voluntary environmental management standards have emerged to
bring expectations about environmental management and environmental performance
into harmony. One of these efforts, conducted by the International Organization for
Standardization (also known by its French acronym, ISO) has resulted in a series of inter-
national environmental management standards (the ISO 14000 series).
Larger mining companies may i nd certii cation of their EMS more valuable considering
the potential trade and market advantages of an internationally recognized and certii ed EMS.
This was a signii cant factor for companies seeking certii cation under the ISO 9000 quality
assurance standards, and is likely to be a factor in decisions regarding ISO 14001 certii cation.

Voluntary Sustainability Reporting

One result of the increasing emphasis on integrating non-i nancial operational aspects into
mine management is the growing practice of reporting non-i nancial performance to com-
plement the i nancial reports intended for investors. Often this is referred to as 'triple bot-
tom line' reporting, or reporting of the three legs (environment, social, and economic) that
are the basis of sustainable development.