ENVIRONMENT

Integrated Environmental Management

Umgeni Water’s water business interacts with the water value chain from source-to-sea and in the course of its business the company continued to strive to apply integrated environmental management (IEM) principles to its projects to ensure it undertook responsible planning, design, construction and operation. In the course of the year, the organisation had to ensure that sustainable bulk water infrastructure continued to be developed to its meet water delivery timeframes and that it engaged sustainable suppliers and contractors, while continuing to promoting and develop people and emerging contractors.

19 projects had environmental assessments undertaken several of which required a Basic Assessment process in terms of new environmental regulations, and others Environmental Scoping in terms of previous legislation. Many challenges were encountered at project level and in all instances concerted efforts were made to mitigate and minimise these through environmental management plans, monitoring and auditing. A summary of the progress is shown in the table below.

Environmental assessment of 19 projects in planning, design and construction phases in 2006/7.

Pre-Feasibility Phase Projects		Feasibility/Design Phase Projects
One project area was reported on:		Fourteen assessment areas reported on:
One good performance	x 1	Five good performance	x 5
		Nine satisfactory performances	x 9
Construction/Defects Phase Projects		Summary
Four assessment areas reported on:		A total of nineteen assessments:
Two good performance	x 2	Eight good performance	x 8
One satisfactory performances	x 1	Ten satisfactory performances	x 10
One unsatisfactory performance	x 1	One unsatisfactory performance	x 1

	The environmental problem is either significant or has occurred, or the deadline for remedial action was not met.
	Progress and/or performance are satisfactory.
	Good environmental practice or commendable performance from staff, a contractor or consultant.

Environmental Sustainablility

The Natural Environment is one of the core dimensions that drive the organisation’s performance, together with the other key dimensions of Customer, Growth, Water and Socio-Economic Development, Finance and Organisation. Umgeni Water had responded to its Natural Environment dimension with two key strategies, namely to conserve natural resources and to mitigate/minimise the impact of all its operations.

Environmental Sustainability Indicators

Four key environmental indicators had been adopted for Umgeni Water in the past year based on current best practise for environmental sustainability. These key indicators have been elaborated on through thirteen key variables selected for the organisation as shown in the table below.

OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMEN

Environmental assessments of operational sites undertaken during the year detected a number of potential or actual environmental problems for which recommendations for management or mitigation could be made where necessary. Environmental audits are performed at all our water and wastewater sites at various stages of the project life-cycle to ensure compliance with relevant legislation and the principle of best practice