Sustainability

Road Safety

The states road death statistics remain above the national average. We believe no one should die or be seriously injured on the state’s road network, and we will manage the network for all road users to minimise the likelihood of road trauma.

Congestion and Freight Productivity

We seek to reduce congestion and enhance freight efficiency on the road network. Reducing congestion mitigates impacts including carbon emissions and air pollutants; increased psychological impacts on people and reduced productivity.

Good Public Policy

We rely on our resources and know-how to ensure we have clear, transparent and strong governance approaches that prevent undue influence in the administration of our role and ensure swift, efficient and effective implementation of government policies and strategies.

Biodiversity

Our infrastructure potentially impacts WA’s unique flora and fauna and we mitigate the impacts of our activities on biodiversity to avoid habitat loss, land degradation and, loss of species and the impacts of climate change.

Workforce Safety and Health

Within the civil construction industry our workforce often interacts with the road environment, moving traffic and heavy machinery in order to deliver our services. We take responsibility to ensure the safety of our workforce.

Value for Money

We must make effective use of the funding we receive to deliver our services to the community in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Regional Presence and Development

Maintaining and enhancing regional roads to improve network safety, access and efficiency is a key focus area to ensure we are supporting the local economy and communities in regional locations. Our regional communities often have less access to community services and have a higher proportion of indigenous population.

Compliance with Environmental Legislation

Some of our activities are subject to environmental legislation. We may face penalties, reputational damage or loss of stakeholder and community confidence if we do not comply with our obligations.

Indigenous Heritage and Native Title

We acknowledge the traditional custodians and aim to protect Aboriginal cultural values whilst acknowledging our infrastructure projects may interface with or disturb culturally sensitive areas. We are committed to making a change in our industry and progressing reconciliation.

Local Communities

Our works and operations impact on the communities that we live in. Our investments can alter the socio-economic profile by altering traffic flows, localised air quality and impacting community severance. Acquisition of property, construction noise and business continuity impacts are examples of issues our projects carefully manage, and impact our role as good neighbours.

Procurement Practices

We rely on our supply chain to deliver tasks critical to our overall success. We engage with a large number of suppliers of varying characteristics. We are aware that we can impact the cash flow and solvency of businesses. We also leverage our relationship with our suppliers to deliver priority government policy which includes training, indigenous engagement and supporting local business.

Job Creation

Our investments are considered to have a multiplier effect in respect to job creation. During this unprecedented time and the associated economic ramifications of COVID-19, we’ve been asked to increase our delivery capability as part of an overall strategy to stimulate the creation and maintenance of jobs within the economy.

Anti-corruption

We assess all our business units to identify any fraud and corruption risks. All employees are presented information on anti-corruption, policies and procedures. Our organisational spend, extensive program of activities, number of suppliers and large asset base, could increase corruption risks without appropriate mitigation.

Road Building Materials

Road construction involves the utilisation of naturally occurring and manufactured materials, and the generation of construction and demolition waste. We seek to minimise lifecycle impacts and to be consistent with circular economy principles. This helps to reduce direct and indirect impacts from materials use including gaining access to naturally occurring materials, the use of non-renewable materials such as bitumen, embodied and transport energy, and the release of volatile organic compounds.

Climate Change, Energy and Emissions

Our road network is exposed to the impacts of climate hazards including bushfires, flooding and storm events and parts of the network are at risk to sea-level rise. Developing, operating and using a road network consumes energy and generates emissions. The predominant impacts from energy and emissions fall outside our direct control arising from use of the network itself. We estimate that the road network generates carbon emissions at a rate of 288.7 t CO2-e per million vehicle kilometres travelled (MVKT). In 2020-21, MVKT was 27,401 and thus emissions were approximately 7.9 mt CO2-e from use of the road network.

Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Through our projects and maintenance activities, we work to incorporate diversity and equality targets. Our projects set targets to include a diverse group of people, and we carry this through to supply chains to engage companies with diverse foundations where possible.

Open and Transparent Communication

Timely, accurate and effective communications are imperative to our operations. Not done well it impacts on reputation and confidence in the agency. When delivered well it eases the impact of potential socio-economic changes on communities from our infrastructure investment.