Sustainability

Looking Ahead

Projects and activities planned for next financial year, some of which have already commenced:

• continue implementing the Wheatbelt Revegetation Bank
• prepare the organisation for the requirements of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management Act (when gazetted)
• improve environmental management in Main Roads directly managed works
• review environmental requirements in the procurement processes
• develop eLearning modules and roll out training on environmental topics
• continue to use the Infrastructure Sustainability rating tool on all our projects in the planning and construction phases, and transition to Version 2.1 for our Design and As Built ratings
• pilot the use of Infrastructure Sustainability ‘Essentials’ tool on projects valued between $5 million-$99 million
• progress plans to utilise over 200,000 tonnes of crushed recycled concrete and maintain usage of crumbed rubber over 1,200 tonnes in road construction
• support the State Electric Vehicle (EV) Strategy by implementing policy to drive EV uptake in our fleet and construction projects
• develop a Net Zero Transition Plan covering our operations to support the WA Climate Policy.

Sustainability Assessment in Projects and Operations

For our highest value major projects we have adopted the Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) rating tool, Australia’s only comprehensive rating system for evaluating sustainability across design, construction and operation of infrastructure. All infrastructure projects exceeding $20 million utilise the IS framework as part of project development and evaluation, and all projects valued over $100 million are officially registered with Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) for assessment. We currently have 16 projects registered with ISCA to achieve Planning, Design and As Built Ratings. We have a corporate commitment that our Planning projects must achieve at least a Bronze IS rating, while our construction projects must achieve a minimum Silver IS rating for both the Design and As Built phases.

Stand-alone public sustainability reports are produced for our projects with IS obligations, irrespective of whether they are officially registered with ISCA. This year reports have been submitted and are accessible from our online report for the following projects:

• Tonkin Highway Grade Separated Interchanges (planning)
• Tonkin Highway Extension (planning)
• Manuwarra Red Dog Highway (Stage 4 – planning)
• Armadale Road to North Lake Road Bridge
• Great Eastern Highway Bypass Interchanges
• High Street Upgrade
• Karel Avenue Upgrade
• Leach Highway and Welshpool Road Interchange
• Mitchell Freeway Extension: Hester Avenue to Romeo Road
• Roe Highway and Kalamunda Road Interchange
• Smart Freeways – Mitchell Southbound
• Swan River Crossings, Fremantle (planning)
• Tonkin Gap Project and Associated Works

Environment and Heritage Management

We use the precautionary principle in our approach to environment and heritage management and aim to avoid and minimise impacts wherever possible. We ensure activities are initially screened for potential environmental and heritage impacts. Activities considered to have a high risk of impact are investigated further, with all other activities managed using our standard practices. In 2020 we screened a total of 1,206 activities with more than 45 per cent of these activities requiring further investigation to ensure sound environmental management.

Where impacts are unavoidable we referred activities with potentially significant impacts to the regulatory authorities for assessment and approval. The following summarises our applications for approvals over the past three years.

Where impacts are unavoidable we referred activities with potentially significant impacts to the regulatory authorities for assessment and approval. The following summarises our applications for approvals over the past three years.

In 2020 we applied for a total of 29 Aboriginal heritage approvals and 11 project-specific clearing permits. A total of 118 projects were assessed under Main Roads Statewide Clearing Permit in 2020, with 22 projects referred to Department of Water and Environmental Regulation in accordance with the conditions of the Statewide Clearing Permit. Five projects were considered to have potentially significant impacts and were referred to the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for assessment. Seven projects were considered to have potentially significant impacts to Matters of National Environmental Significance and were referred to the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE) for assessment under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

In 2020 the EPA concluded that six projects did not have potentially significant impacts and made a decision not to assess the works. Five projects referred to the EPA were still under assessment at the close of 2020. One project was approved by Western Australia’s Minister for the Environment in 2020.

In 2020 DAWE concluded that three projects did not have potentially significant impacts on matters of national environmental significance and made the decision not to assess the works. 12 projects referred to the DAWE were still under assessment at the close of 2020. Three projects were approved under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in 2020.

Clearing Native Vegetation

While we strive to find a balance between achieving road safety objectives and the environment, it is not always possible to avoid the clearing of native vegetation. When this occurs we offset the negative impacts of removing this native vegetation through seeding or planting, purchased land for contribution to the conservation estate or monetary contributions to the State Offset Fund for the acquisition of land and addition to the Conservation Estate.

The following summarises our clearing, revegetation and offset activities over the past three years. Clearing of native vegetation undertaken in 2020 under our Statewide Clearing Permit CPS 818 is available on our website.

In the 2020 calendar year we cleared 210 hectares of native vegetation for 78 projects. We provided offsets in the form of land acquisition and monetary contributions to the Western Australian Environmental Offsets Fund for the purchase and management of a total of 571 hectares of native vegetation. We also undertook 214 hectares of revegetation works, although none of this was required under a legislative approval and was initiated by Main Roads.

Incidents

While we undertake all our activities in accordance with our procedures, we are prepared for the possibility of environmental incidents and have processes ready to respond. An environmental incident is any activity that has the potential to have an adverse environmental impact and can include activities undertaken by us, our contractors or a Third Party. The following outlines the significant incidents classified as having a moderate, major or catastrophic consequence in the past three years.

There were no catastrophic Main Roads or third party incidents in 2020.

There was one major incident relating to the commencement of low impact geotechnical investigations within an area of Aboriginal heritage significance prior to heritage clearance. The boundaries between areas approved for disturbance, that is areas cleared for disturbance, and areas not approved were miscommunicated to on-site operators. Geotechnical investigation works commenced in the not-approved areas rather than being restricted to the approved areas. Main Roads notified the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage and met with the Eastern Guruma People to discuss options and undertook a formal investigation into the incident. Changes have been made to the environmental and heritage processes for geotechnical investigations to prevent this happening in the future.

The remaining 12 incidents were classified as moderate with eight caused by our activities and four caused by third parties. These 12 incidents related to: one spill, one impact to Aboriginal heritage (Main Roads), one impact to surface water (Main Roads) and nine incidents of unauthorised clearing of native vegetation.

The nine incidents of unauthorised clearing related to six Main Roads incidents resulting in a total of 1.25 hectares of unauthorised clearing of native vegetation and three third party incidents resulting in a total of 11.45 hectares of unauthorised clearing of native vegetation.

Incidents were reported to the relevant authorities and there were no penalties or financial sanctions related to any of these incidents. We have addressed these procedural failures through training, changes in processes and increased compliance audits to ensure they are not repeated.

Urban Air Quality

Air quality in Perth is generally of a high standard compared with other Australian and international cities. Levels of pollutants have all declined due to tightening of national vehicle emission and fuel standards and the management of industrial and domestic air pollution. Initiatives been undertaken that contribute to the reduction of emissions, which include:

• Encouraging the use of alternative transport through principal shared paths for pedestrians and cyclists
• Optimising traffic management on our network, which minimises emissions due to enhanced traffic flow
• Examining options for an integrated system of roads, rail crossings, mass transit and future technologies
• Supporting the uptake of low emissions technology vehicles, including electric hybrid or other fuelled vehicles that generate less pollutants
• Strategies that reduce congestion and improve network efficiency will result in improvements to air pollution caused by vehicle emissions.

Using the Australian Transport Assessment and Planning Guidelines 2016, we have used data captured internally to estimate emissions trends of the six main air pollutants (carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, photochemical oxidants (such as ozone), sulphur dioxide, lead and particles) due to operations and congestion on state and significant local roads in the Perth metropolitan area. A complete breakdown of emissions by type is available in the Additional Environmental and Sustainability Disclosures section.

Net Zero Transition

With the release of the WA Climate Policy we are progressing the development of a Net Zero Transition Plan which will guide actions in support of the States aspiration to achieve net zero greenhouse emissions emitted by 2050. The plan will focus on our operations and infrastructure investments but also consider impacts from the use of the road network. The Net Zero Transition Plan will replace our existing Carbon Reduction Plan and Target. Our total emissions across our facilities over the past year were 27,313 CO_2-e, achieving our target which was to be below 29,302 CO_2-e. This table indicates our Green House Gas Emissions (Scope 1 and 2) over the last three years. Detailed information showing data over the last three years by Scope, Source and Intensity are available in the Additional Environmental and Sustainability Disclosures section.

Western Australia Electric Vehicle Strategy

The Western Australia Electric Vehicle (EV) Strategy is closely linked to the Western Australia Climate Policy as the electrification of transport is considered pivotal to reducing overall emissions from transport. Under the strategy, we have also commenced a pilot trial of an EV quota for major projects. If successful, a broader construction project fleet policy will be developed. We are also committed to increasing the uptake of electric vehicles within our own vehicle fleet and support the state government target of 25 per cent, of all new light and small passenger, and small and medium SUV government fleet vehicles to be electric by 2025-26.

Climate Change Adaptation

We have identified more than 52 kilometres of State Roads that have been assessed to warrant earlier, more detailed evaluation for the impacts of climate change. The indicative replacement value of this at-risk infrastructure is in the order of $365 million. A fundamental aspect of our Sustainability Policy is climate change. The release of the WA Climate Policy will require us to refresh our approach to align with any State led adaptation activities.

Materials for Road Building

In support of the Waste Avoidance and Recovery Strategy 2030 we incorporate recycled content into the significant materials used for road construction. Crushed Recycled Concrete (CRC) is a road building material which is under-utilised, making up 50 per cent of Western Australia’s waste stream. In support of the Waste Authorities Roads to Reuse Program we have continued our commitment to utilise CRC as sub-base under full depth asphalt on our major projects and facilitate its broader use by local government. A total of 46,132 tonnes of CRC was used last year taking our cumulative total to 81,014 tonnes. We are committed to increasing our total use of CRC to over 200,000 tonnes.

Waste tyres are another significant challenge and we are committed to helping to facilitate the establishment of a local tyre recycling industry. We currently utilise crumbed rubber in resealing works, which could potentially be sourced using recycled tyres. We have committed to develop and implement alternative crumbed scrap rubber bituminous binders to double our and local governments usage to over 1,200 tonnes per year. During the last year we successfully used 2,753 tonnes crumbed scrap rubber bituminous binders.

Detailed information and data from the past three years available in the Additional Environmental and Sustainability Disclosures section covers the following categories:

• Imported road construction material by type
• Imported recycled construction material by type
• Waste material to landfill by type
• Materials recycled by type.