Sustainability: Going beyond project approvals
Brendan Bateman and Nick Thomas, Partners, Environment and Planning
Brendan Bateman
We are also seeing that now being continued in some of the coal mining cases like I mentioned before in Victoria and Queensland and most recently the Anvil Hill case in NSW which was a challenge to a project approval process.
In that case there was a challenge to a decision by the Director-General to put on exhibition an environmental assessment for a particular coal mine project and that had not assessed indirect impacts from the mining of the coal - namely the emission of greenhouse gas emissions from end-users - so certainly we're seeing it manifest itself but it is at the project level at this particular point in time.
Nick Thomas
That issue of resources extraction and the long-term effects from the end use of those resources is another good example of this lifecycle assessment issue. To what extent is it appropriate to take on board impacts which people unrelated to you may cause from using your products?
It's a real issue which needs to be addressed and you know we're saying governments are grappling with the policy concepts there but it's interesting to note on your example of the Anvil Hill mine there is a range of environmental issues which will need to be addressed there, and it seems that the proponent has a good grasp of those now and they've really taking them on board. There'll be issues such as water use and various other matters all crucial to Australia's long-term environment and issues which no doubt the proponent will look to manage as it proceeds if the project goes ahead.
