Orica - Sustainability

Environment

Overview

We are committed to valuing people and the environment. Going forward, we aim to be:

Carbon neutral - no net generation of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere
Water neutral - no net consumption of potable water
Zero waste - no net generation of waste to landfill and requires innovative ways to prevent, reduce, reuse and recycle by-product streams; and
Environmentally friendly - operations, products and services that have no unintended consequences to the environment and the community.

...in a commercially responsible way.

Our SH&E Policy states that we will:

strive to ensure our facilities operate to the highest standards to protect our employees, contractors, neighbours and the environment.
continue to seek ways to efficiently use materials and energy
sell only those products that can be produced, transported, stored, used and disposed of safely.
seek to develop new or improved products and processes to improve the contribution we make to the quality of people's lives and to minimise the impact on the environment.

Our commitment to the environment is an integral part of our Sustainability Strategy. Key elements include:

Line management responsibility and employee accountability for environmental performance;
Effective implementation of our SH&E Management System;
Undertaking product life cycle studies to ensure that SH&E risks are assessed and minimised as far as practicable;
Setting and achieving environmental key performance indicators;
Effective reporting and follow up on environmental incidents (within our operations and during product distribution); and
Recognition of efforts to improve our environmental performance.

Our SH&E Model Procedures address the management of legacy sites, ongoing environmental management, design issues and safe movement of product from supplier to customer. All of our facilities, as a minimum, must comply with the legal requirements of the jurisdiction in which they operate.

Our Performance in 2008

Resource and Operational Sustainability (all reductions are on a per tonne of product manufactured basis and are relative to 2004 baseline levels)
Reduce energy consumption	Reduction in energy consumption: >15%	14.0% reduction in energy consumption (per tonne of product) in 2008, compared to a 5.7% increase last year.
Reduce emissions of greenhouse gases	Reduction in emissions of total carbon dioxide equivalent gases: >35% comprising:	21.6% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions (per tonne of product) in 2008, compared to an 18.8% increase last year.
	- Reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent gases (excluding nitrous oxide): >15%	20.2% reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent gases, excluding nitrous oxide (per tonne of product) in 2008, compared to a 20.4% increase last year.
	- Reduction in emissions of nitrous oxide: >50%	22.0% reduction in emissions of nitrous oxide (per tonne of product) in 2008, compared to an 18.0% increase last year.
Reduce water consumption	Reduction in water consumption: >15%	26.9% reduction in water consumption (per tonne of product) in 2008, compared to a 10.9% reduction last year.
Reduce waste generation	Reduction in waste generated: >50%	55.0% reduction in waste generation (per tonne of product) in 2008, compared to a 50.7% reduction last year.

In 2008 Orica demonstrated excellent performance across all environmental measures. Energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and waste generation were all considerably lower than baseline values. This year we included treated water sales from the Botany Groundwater Treatment Plant (GTP) in production figures

Senior management tracks Orica’s sustainability performance quarterly. From June 2008 we commenced the inclusion of quarterly reports from small sites, which previously reported six-monthly. This move will increase the accuracy of our mid-term reporting. In Australia, this will enhance the accuracy of data reported to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System (NGERS), which came into effect July 1st 2008.