Our Approach & Material Aspects

We ensure the relevance of our approach to sustainability throughout our business and our relationships by identifying those aspects most material to our business.

These are captured and reflected in our disclosures by a biennial desktop materiality review and stakeholder prioritisation workshops. To determine our most material sustainability topics, the review draws from our corporate and legislative commitments, key risks, corporate stakeholder engagement processes, media and Ministerial topics and our peers’ reporting practices.

Material Aspects for Sustainability 2023

Value Chain

Our value chain showcases key activities from our business model and highlights where we create the most significant value through economic, environmental, or social impacts. It also adds a dimension to illustrate how we move from our internal activities to valuing relationships with suppliers, stakeholders, the community, and ultimately delivering customer impact and value creation outcomes.

Addressing our Material Issues

Our approach to addressing our top material issues and alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is shown in the table. More information on how these topics relate to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators including the GRI Content Index and the SDGs can be found in the online version of this report.

Material Issues	Key Impacts	Where Impact Occurs in Our Value Chain
Road Safety	The state’s road deaths remain above the national average at 6.2 deaths per 100,000 population p.a. We believe no one should die or be seriously injured on the state’s road network, and we will seek to minimise the likelihood of road trauma aligned with State Road Safety Strategy.	Road Network Use
Congestion and Freight Productivity	We seek to reduce congestion and enhance freight efficiency through the actions we take to build and operate our network including traffic management during events and road works. Reducing congestion mitigates impacts including carbon emissions and air pollutants; increased psychological impacts and loss of productivity.	Road Network Use
Workforce Safety and Health	Our workforce interacts with the road environment, moving traffic and heavy machinery to deliver our services. The consequence of incidents where safety is compromised can be significant. We seek to ensure the safety of anyone working on our projects.	Asset Maintenance Asset Upgrades/ Construction
Biodiversity	Our infrastructure can directly impact our unique flora and fauna. Any new works leads to a permanent change of land use. On every project we seek to avoid, minimise and mitigate the impacts of our activities on biodiversity to avoid habitat loss, land degradation, loss of species and the impacts of climate change.	Asset Upgrades/ Construction
Good Public Policy	We rely on resources and know-how to ensure that we have clear, transparent, and strong governance approaches that prevent influence in the administration of our role and to ensure efficient and effective implementation of government directions.	Strategic Asset Management
Regional Presence and Development	Our operations support economic development in regional communities and these communities rely on our infrastructure to access services. Maintaining and enhancing the safety and efficiency of regional roads is a key focus. We recognise the impact we have on regional towns and their populations. Some communities have high Aboriginal populations and can have trouble accessing services.	Network Asset Operations
Aboriginal Heritage and Native Title	We acknowledge Traditional Custodians and aim to protect Aboriginal cultural values while acknowledging our projects may interfere with or disturb culturally sensitive areas. We are committed to avoiding, minimising and mitigating impacts from our works, progressing reconciliation and providing economic opportunities including job creation through our procurement practices.	Asset Upgrades/ Construction Asset Maintenance
Procurement Practices	We rely on our supply chain to deliver resources critical to our overall success. We engage with many suppliers with 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, Aboriginal engagement and supporting local business.	Asset Upgrades/ Construction Asset Maintenance
Local Communities	Our works and operations can impact on communities. Our investments can alter a socio-economic profile by altering traffic flows, local air quality and impact community severance. Acquisition of property, construction noise, and business-continuity impacts are examples of issues carefully managed by our projects that can impact on our role as good neighbours.	Asset Maintenance Asset Upgrades/ Construction
Job Creation	We directly employ 1,454 people, who are spread throughout our metropolitan and regional offices. Of these, 33 per cent are female, and 66 per cent are male. Aboriginal employees make up four percent of our workforce. We provide an estimated additional 23,000 direct and indirect jobs through our construction expenditure.	Asset Upgrades/ Construction
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.	Strategic Asset Management
Road Building Materials	Road construction utilises naturally occurring and manufactured materials and generates Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste. We seek to minimise lifecycle impacts and to be consistent with circular economy principles to reduce direct and indirect impacts from material use. This includes reducing the use of non-renewable materials like bitumen and enhancing our use of recycled materials. We also aim to reduce our embodied and transport energy generation, and the release of volatile organic compounds.	Asset Upgrades/ Construction
Value for Money	We must make effective use of the funding we receive to deliver our services to the community in the most efficient way. The road network and construction industry have flow-on effects particularly in creating jobs and strengthening the post-pandemic economy.	Strategic Asset Management
Climate Change, Energy and Emissions	Our road network is exposed to the impacts of climate hazards including bushfires, flooding and storm events and in some cases 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. We estimate that the road network generates carbon emissions at a rate of 288.7 t CO₂-e per million vehicle kilometres travelled (MVKT). 2022-2023, MVKT was 10,851 and emissions were approximately 3.1 mt CO₂-e from use of the WA road network.	Road Network Use
Diversity and Equal Opportunity	According to the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency data explorer, in 2021-22 the construction industry had only 24 per cent of the workforce being female. There was a 29 per cent total remuneration gender pay gap for full-time employees. Through our 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.	Strategic Asset Management
Open and Transparent Communication	Timely, accurate and effective communications are imperative to our operations. If not done well, this impacts the reputation of and confidence in our agency. When delivered well, it eases the impact of potential socio-economic changes on communities from our activities.	Asset Upgrades/ Construction
Compliance with Environmental Legislation	Some of our activities are subject to environmental legislation. We may face penalties, reputational damage or loss of confidence if we do not comply with our obligations.	Asset Maintenance Asset Upgrades/ Construction