Sasol Limited Sustainability Report 2021 - Book - Page 7
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INTRODUCTION
President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s statement
“
Future Sasol is premised on
resilience in a lower-carbon future
and our decarbonisation goals
which directly impact our scope
1, 2 and 3 emissions through
transforming our operations.
“
Fleetwood Grobler
President and CEO
Dear stakeholders,
In a year marked by seismic changes to the way we live and
how we do business, I must express our deepest condolences for
the loss of two of our colleagues who passed away in work-related
incidents - one before financial year-end, the other after. Further,
as the pandemic has relentlessly spread, it has led to the tragic
loss of life and I convey sincere sympathies to those who have
lost family members, friends, colleagues and loved ones due to
this menacing disease. At Sasol, we have been firm in our actions
to combat the further spread of the pandemic and ensure
that we put in place measures that protect our people and our
communities.
We have placed sustainability firmly at the centre of our strategy
and maintained our triple bottom line focus of People, Planet,
Profit. COVID-19 has prompted us to make significant changes
to our business and transform ourselves to be resilient and
sustainable in the long term.
Extending our COVID-19 response
We have taken a holistic and integrated response to COVID-19
through numerous measures for our people and communities.
Importantly, at our operations we continued with interventions
to protect our people, including through, among others
enforcing social distancing, the use of appropriate personal
protective equipment (PPE) and basic hygiene including
the regular washing of hands and use of sanitisers. For our
office-based staff, we have focused on implementing wellness
measures as our people have adjusted to a virtual work
environment while based at home. As part of our occupational
health and wellbeing strategy, we continue to explore further
options to assist our people in promoting their wellbeing in this
new virtual environment.
With the majority of our employees in South Africa, we have
supported the Department of Health’s intervention on COVID-19
throughout the year including the vaccination roll-out. We have
encouraged our communities through targeted interventions
to enhance communication and education, this has primed
our communities to consider vaccinations as the roll-out gains
momentum to improve acceptance. We have worked with
government in securing infrastructure over and above our own,
including donating mobile clinics, to maximise the daily number
of vaccinations. We are proud of the significant progress we
have made in protecting the wellbeing and health of our people
during the pandemic, particularly as the third wave subsides
in South Africa. In Mozambique, we accessed vaccines for our
employees and contractors through the Mozambique Ministry
of Health leading to an improved capability of saving lives and
preventing an increase in the number of cases and serious
hospitalisation.
Transition to Future Sasol
Through Sasol 2.0, we have transformed our business so that
Future Sasol is sustainable in the long term. Given the impact
the programme had on employees, we were and are always
guided by our core value to be caring. We provided transition
support to affected employees with career transition skills,
access to resources and training, as well as various other
wellbeing support measures.
Safe and enduring operations
Our people are essential to maintaining safe and enduring
operations, and zero harm remains our top priority. We
have made significant progress in humanising safety within
Sasol through key interventions and programmes that have
transformed the safety, health and environmental (SHE)
dialogue. Our focus on reducing fatalities is relentless as
we progress towards zero harm. Core to our approach in
safety management is eliminating fatalities and high severity
incidents (HSI) enabled by implementing an HSI programme.
There are trend analyses across various performance areas that
indicate good progress in critical areas that prioritise people.
Our HSI programme resulted in a significant reduction in the
severity of the hospitalised incidents experienced.
In the past year, our operations globally have normalised
following our COVID-19 response programme that saw us take
an agile approach to managing production. Underpinned by
fit-for-purpose practices, our objective is to ensure sustainable
performance and world-class operations. Our Energy
Operations decarbonisation roadmap is designed consistent
with our triple bottom line objectives and is a cornerstone of
enabling a just transition in South Africa.
Growing shared value
Team Sasol is driven by our Purpose of 'Innovating for a
better world', as we believe that Sasol is a force for good.
Despite the very significant challenges of the past year, Sasol
continues to be a significant investor in skills development
and social investment. Our approach is strongly guided by
our stakeholders and social partners, as they have been
instrumental in shaping our refreshed focus areas.
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Across our global footprint, we enable our communities access
to quality education through bursaries, bridging programmes
to progress to tertiary education and various interventions
designed to strengthen educational support to learners as
well as educators and institutions. Through our supply chain,
two thirds of our R23,8 billion black-owned spend is with black
women-owned businesses and remains an important lever
in advancing transformation and diversity.
Resilience in a lower-carbon future
Future Sasol is premised on resilience in a low-carbon future.
Throughout our reports are details of how we plan to ensure
our just transition, and the targets and milestones to track
our performance. We have undertaken robust scenario
testing to guide our approach, while actively exploring
technologies that will enable us to decarbonise our business.
Sasol is uniquely positioned with our FT technology at the
core of our value proposition. We have installed capacity and
capability to produce green energy through the value chain.
Our decarbonisation goals directly impact our scope 1 and 2
emissions through transforming our operations, while we are
making good progress on addressing
scope 3 emissions through benchmark methodologies.
We are continuing with work to further improve and validate
scope 3 emissions.
depend on. We continue to invest in our facilities to reduce our
environmental footprint. I am encouraged by the positive trend
in our air emissions profile, as our investments and operational
improvements yield good results in reducing our emissions.
Water management is a key focus area given the intensity
of our water usage at our operations. Our commitment to
sustainable water use is further reflected as signatory to
the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate. Sustainability
is core to Future Sasol, which includes improving waste
management. We are making good progress in improving on
waste management, from policy development, minimisation
and development of alternative usage solutions.
Conclusion
Notwithstanding a challenging year of significant change
for Sasol and the world in which we operate, we have taken
decisive measures to ensure Sasol’s long-term sustainability.
Future Sasol is based on sustainability being at the core of our
strategy. We are committed to improving our ESG performance
and playing our role in decarbonising the economy. Central to
this is being guided by our Purpose to 'Innovate for a better
world'.
Minimising environmental footprint
As Sasol depends on natural resources, we are acutely
aware of the impact our operations have on the environment.
We take a multi-faceted approach to managing our impact
on the environment as well as on the natural resources we
Fleetwood Grobler
President and CEO
20 September 2021
Embedding sustainability through Innovation – our sustainability ideas platform
An important way to further embed sustainability at Sasol is to involve employees in the co-creation of sustainable practices,
giving them a sense of ownership in integrating sustainability into all our business decisions. While we have sustainability
leaders at the top of our organisation, we recognise that leadership must be cultivated at all levels and geographies across
Sasol. In this way, we will get more and better sustainability ideas bubbling up throughout the Group.
To make this happen, we are launching The Sasol Sustainability Ideas Platform. By tapping into Sasol’s long-standing culture
of innovation, the platform gives employees the opportunity to develop solutions to help protect the climate, advance a
circular economy and foster more sustainable communities. In line with Sasol’s Purpose of 'Innovating for a better world',
every employee at Sasol can submit ideas to this platform and in so doing support our sustainability programme, further
embedding sustainability in everything we do.
Sasol Sustainability Report 2021