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Many companies have become aware of the need for early environmental input, often beginning in a meaningful way at the pre-feasibility stage and continuing throughout the construction process. This has been the experience of SRK Consulting who are becoming more and more involved in projects from the outset, at the request of the client, in assessing environmental risks and identifying fatal flaws as opposed to simply conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for the purposes of obtaining environmental authorization, often once the detailed design stage of the project has been completed. At times, this involvement then continues throughout the construction phase. Two specific examples of this involve the world's largest producer of cement, French-based Lafarge, and Petrotine, a company planning the transportation of petroleum products from Matolo in Mozambique, to Kendal in Mpumalanga, with a view to connecting with an existing pipeline to Gauteng
THE ROUTE TAKEN by Lafarge in the selection of a site for the construction of a cement grinding plant on the West Rand, goes well beyond legislative requirements. Six sites were identified by Lafarge, and then SRK was called in much earlier than would normally be the case so that they could be involved in a site selection process. Criteria taken into account resulted in Lafarge being able to...