Sasol Sustainability Report 2023 - Book - Page 44
INTRODUCTION
SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE AGAINST OUR FOCUS AREAS
MANAGING OUR ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT
DATA AND ASSURANCE
ANNEXURES
MANAGING OUR ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT // Air quality management
OUR COMMITMENT //
OUR GROUP APPROACH
We acknowledge the link between our activities and air quality and the need
to act responsibly in managing our impacts in the regions in which we operate.
We have a holistic air quality management approach, which is appropriately
informed by internationally accepted practices.
Our SHE policy underpins our risk-based approach to mitigate and improve our atmospheric
footprint relating to air quality management and ambient air quality improvement.
This includes our ongoing efforts to prevent pollution and enable ambient air quality
improvement through legal compliance and the application of our duty of care.
We remain committed to engaging and collaborating with our stakeholders on our improvement
commitments and associated progress. To this end, we participate constructively in policy
and regulatory development processes as well as in community initiatives. We monitor our
performance, report to the authorities thereon and disclose appropriately to our stakeholders.
PERFORMANCE
OUR AIR QUALITY LANDSCAPE
Our Southern African operations are dependent on
coal and gas as primary feedstocks, with our Natref
facility in Sasolburg reliant on crude oil. Outside Africa,
our international operations depend on a diverse
feedstock portfolio including coal, gas and crude-oil
derived feedstock.
The emissions from our coal feedstock technologies
in South Africa make up the greatest portion of our
contribution to the relevant airsheds. Sasol has
committed to reduce its dependence on coal, as part
of our decarbonisation strategy. Over time, this strategy
is expected to have a significant positive impact on our
atmospheric footprint.
The contribution to emissions of our North American,
Eurasian and Mozambique operations has been marginal
compared to that of our South African operations.
Managing air quality in South Africa
In FY23, we continued our efforts to reduce our impact on air quality. These are focused on compliance
with regulatory requirements to retain our licence to operate; innovative solutions; and constructive
engagements with stakeholders including our fenceline communities and regulatory authorities.
RETAINING OUR LICENCE TO OPERATE
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
We continuously monitor emissions from our plants and the impact
on ambient air quality in adherence to the conditions of our existing
Atmospheric Emission Licences, as reported, amongst others, via our
annual compliance reports submitted to the regulatory authorities.
We have made significant progress towards compliance with the
Minimum Emission Standards (MES). These are improvement
standards prescribed for specific substances related to specific
activities and 98% of our emissions sources are complying with the
standards. We are advancing our commitments as outlined in our air
quality compliance roadmaps and are in the last stretch of this journey
to meet the same standards for newly designed plants by 1 April 2025.
We disclose our compliance challenges and collaborate with the
authorities in addressing these. Refer to the environmental compliance
section on page 52 for details on our environmental compliance.
We appreciate that our activities have an
impact on the environment and on our
fenceline communities. Our aim remains
the creation and preservation
of sustainable value informed by
stakeholder engagements, responding
to stakeholder expectations and being
transparent regarding our commitments
and performance. Accordingly, in
December 2022, January and June 2023
we engage transparently with our
communities in Sasolburg and Secunda
on our performance and ongoing air
quality improvement efforts.
INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
ENGAGEMENT WITH AUTHORITIES
We implemented abatement projects that use the
latest technologies that are compatible with our
mature plants. Examples include:
We support government's policy and regulatory
endeavours to improve air quality and we engage
constructively in this regard at local, provincial and
national level. We are participating in the development
of the Highveld Priority Area Air Quality Management
Plan and the review of Section 21 of the National
Environmental Management: Air. Quality Act
(NEM:AQA), 39 of 2004. In the latter part of 2022, we
voluntarily engaged with the National Environmental
Consultative and Advisory Forum for air quality licences
and compliance. The forum was established by the
Minister of Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the
Environment (DFFE). Sasol9s approach to air quality
management was discussed with the forum as part of
its consultative work and submissions were made for
the forum9s consideration towards enabling sustained
compliance and ambient air quality improvement
aligned with the objectives of the NEM:AQA and the
MES. During this reporting period, all of our operations
also engaged with the office of the National Air Quality
Office (NAQO) regarding the performance of our
operations and disclosed information requested by the
NAQO for purposes of improving ambient air quality.
We have also co-operated with the hydrogen sulphide
(H2S) task team that was established by the NAQO.
We also engage in the Free State9s Climate Change
Adaption Plan development process.
" Co-feeding biosludge to gasification at our
Secunda Operations (SO) 3 a stream that is
currently incinerated is intended to be routed
to our gasification process where we anticipate
deriving syngas from biosludge with the objective
of moving up the waste hierarchy;
" Investigating alternative treatment solutions for
High Organic Water (HOW) at SO 3 studies are
in progress investigating routing this stream to
gasification or bio-basins to divert the stream from
incineration and improve air quality;
" Working with third parties solution providers for
our High Sulfur Pitch waste stream to route the
stream away from landfill or incineration options;
and
" Committing to the continuous reduction
of emissions and the improvement of air
quality. To this end we have adopted an
integrated approach to emission reduction and
decarbonisation.
Our Future Sasol ambition is to “Grow shared value while accelerating our transition to net zero”.
Appreciating the growing urgency to slow climate change, we have committed to reduce our
dependence on coal as part of our decarbonisation journey. Synergistic to this ambition, we have
identified initiatives to reduce our overall environmental footprint specifically with the objective to
reduce our emissions and improve air quality.
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