Environment / Natural Resources Management

In this report, the Natural Value Initiative (NVI) reviews 30 companies in the mining and oil and gas sectors. It evaluates progress made by the sectors in addressing the issue of biodiversity, responding to emerging thinking on ecosystem services and developing robust systems to manage risk and realise opportunity associated with these issues. The report outlines company responses, identifies strengths and areas of common weakness, makes recommendations for improvement and offers further actions for investors, government and the industry. It is these suggestions for improvement that the investors involved in this study are using in their ongoing dialogue with companies identified as underperforming within the analysis.

The Global Water Tool is a free and easy-to-use tool for companies and organizations to map their water use and assess risks relative to their global operations and supply chains. It compares a company’s sites with validated water and sanitation data on a country and watershed basis. The tool also helps companies understand their water needs in relation to local conditions, such as water availability (current and projected), water scarcity, access to safe drinking water sources and sanitation, as well as population and industrial growth. This online, Excel-based platform takes a company’s water usage data and maps its operation sites with external water and sanitation datasets. Looking beyond operational water use, supplier site locations may also be mapped as well.

This guide can serve as a reference document for the entire international PHE community. The guide provides a menu of indicators to be used selectively as part of the M&E of regional programs and country projects, reflecting the locally based nature of PHE programs.

This product shows the business benefits of sustainability by helping companies be more strategic about the CSR activities they choose to undertake and to achieve the greatest benefits of these through effective communication. The program provides tools and guidance to companies in designing integrated strategies and action plans, and helps them improve their transparency through guidance on best practice sustainability reporting, such as the Global Reporting Initiative. In particular, the program aims to promote better performance and reporting around community development, gender, labor, human rights, biodiversity, and climate change and more effective harnessing of the potential of the SRI market to reward companies who do so successfully.

The purpose of this work is to help track progress, generate greater accountability and build demand for closing the gaps between local government decision-making and environmental improvements. The environmental governance readiness assessment diagnostic, which is a primary output of this work, will enable a quick quantification of the performance and capabilities of local policymakers, local service providers and local communities towards improving environmental management of green (i.e. ecosystem and natural resource issues) and brown (i.e. urban environment issues).

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has developed various participatory tools specifically for use with forest communities and other natural resource dependent groups. Some of these tools are adaptations of existing methods; others were created specifically for work with forest dependent communities. The tools have diverse applications: stakeholder identification, decision making, planning, conflict management, information collection, and other uses.

In the extractive industries and infrastructure sectors in particular, where a project can have potentially broader implications for the public at large, IFC recognizes the importance of assessment of governance risks and disclosure of information as a means to manage governance risks. Accordingly, subject to applicable legal restrictions, IFC has the following sector-specific initiatives on disclosure of project-related information, in addition to the disclosure requirements specified in Performance Standard 1.

This document provides policymakers, managers, and planning and evaluation staff with ideas about participatory processes and indicators that can be used to involve community members and others in program evaluation. Drawing upon experience gained during the past fifteen years in more than twenty countries, the volume is structured around a framework of key indicators that can be measured to determine progress toward the objectives of sustainability, effective use, and replicability in water and sanitation programs. The methodology is relevant to other sectors, as well.

Indicators are a way of presenting and managing complex information in a simple and clear manner. Using an approach based on risk assessment, this document outlines a methodology for developing site-level indicators to monitor significant positive and negative biodiversity impacts and company-level indicators to inform and report on the approach taken to biodiversity conservation at a strategic level.

The Framework for Integrating Biodiversity into the Site Selection Process (the Framework) is designed to support companies in identifying and developing appropriate responses to managing new business ventures in areas of high biodiversity value.

This document takes as its starting point the assumption that biodiversity conservation is an integral part of sustainable development, and that oil and gas companies should integrate biodiversity considerations into their Environmental Management Systems (EMS) or integrated Health, Safety and Environmental Management Systems (HSEMS) at a corporate and/or project level.

This module examines one crucial part of the mineral extraction process – how mine planning for environment protection can help in developing projects that meet community expectations for minimal environmental impacts.

This handbook addresses the theme of biodiversity management, which is one theme in the Leading Practice Sustainable Development Program. The aims of the Program are to identify the key issues affecting sustainable development in the mining industry and provide information and case studies that illustrate a more sustainable basis for the mining industry.

These guidelines present recent examples of sound environmental management practices and regulations from various mining countries worldwide and are designed to assist government and industry, from both developing and developed countries, encourage sustainable mining practices. They encompass a variety of tools and systems, including environmental impact assessment (EIAs), environmental management systems and programmes, environmental monitoring programmes, environmental auditing and enforcement.

This document presents case studies on mining and biodiversity conservation by companies such as Alcoa, Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Freeport McMoran, the Mining Association of Canada, Noranda, Rio Tinto, and WMC Resources Ltd. Each of the 17 case studies provides a brief background on the issue, followed by a description either the steps taken to resolve any differences or the program introduced to address the problem.

This IPIECA guide is designed to help HSE professionals and other relevant staff, e.g. those involved with project planning, in the oil and gas industry to develop Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) for their sites and projects. BAPs are a systematic approach to biodiversity conservation that can build on, and be integrated with, existing company activities and processes throughout the oil and gas project life cycle.

There are two requirements for the consistently effective management of biodiversity risks in oil and gas development. The first is an awareness of the scope of appropriate biodiversity conservation actions for industry. The second is the timely identification and assessment of biodiversity risks and opportunities related to a specific project, in order to allow full consideration of these risks and opportunities during project development and implementation planning and at decision points.

The purpose of this document is to develop a voluntary framework for assessing GHG emission reductions associated with specific types of oil and natural gas projects, including references to relevant methodologies or guidance. It also aims to assist the industry by providing guidelines on identifying, assessing, and developing candidate projects that would lead to credible emission reductions.

A handbook developed jointly by the World Bank and IFC which currently includes revised environmental guidelines for 41 sectors and industries. In addition to these guidelines, IFC is also using a series of environmental, health and safety guidelines for which there are no parallel guidelines in the PPAH.

This publication outlines the IPIECA water management good practice guidelines, ‘Operating responsibly and Building Capacity', illustrated by a number of company case studies.

The ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 families are among ISO's most widely known standards ever. ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 standards are implemented by some 887 770 organizations in 161 countries. ISO 9000 has become an international reference for quality management requirements in business-to-business dealings, and ISO 14000 is well on the way to achieving as much, if not more, in enabling organizations to meet their environmental challenges.

The Guide is an extension of both the Environmental Policy and the Environmental Management Framework developed by the Mining Association of Canada (MAC). The Guide, specifically applied to tailings management, is designed to help MAC member companies perform due diligence in order to ensure that they are managing their tailings facilities responsibly and safely, which in turn can be demonstrated to regulators and the public.