(Company Annoucement) By Professor Willem Ferguson, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria South Africa has highly sophisticated laws with respect to environmental management. This is embodied in the National Environmental Management Act. NEMA forms the backbone of our environmental legislation, serving to interpret a large body of ancillary legislation, e.g. the Water Act, the Air Quality Act, the Biodiversity Act, the EIA regulations and the Protected Areas Act.
Together, NEMA and the surrounding acts, including their regulations, bring about an efficient framework for sustainable development in South Africa. What makes NEMA special? Firstly, it assigns clear responsibilities for environmental consequences of development. For instance, in some cases, not only the present owner of a property is assigned responsibility for actions or omissions resulting in strongly negative environmental consequences, but also the tenants, previous owners and previous tenants. The assignment of responsibilities and the accompanying liabilities for non-compliance is the corner stone of an enforceable legal system. Secondly, in many cases, any person can initiate a legal action against a company that is not complying with the existing legal requirements. This may include any individual or legal entity that is an interested or concerned party. These types of provisions bring about much broader exposure of economic development that affects the environment, in this way facilitating a much more transparent process of environmental exposures and enforcement. Since 1996, the central government, provinces as well as local authorities have appointed environmental management inspectors (so-called 'Green Scorpions'), tasked to inspect companies who are suspected to be involved in actions that negatively affect our environment.
These inspectors investigate various aspects such as pollution of air, water or soil, destruction of biodiversity or natural resources, or the unauthorised utilisation of natural resources. The implementation of the 'Green Scorpions' has been so successful that the department of Water
Affairs has started training 'Blue Scorpions' and the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs has started the training of Mining Environment Inspectors. This exposes companies and developers to being inspected for compliance to a broad swathe of environmental requirements.
The South African environmental legislation is in a stage of rapid development, with several major promulgations, changes or updates each year. One of the recent aspects that has seen active development, is achieving a single coherent compliance structure applying to both mining and the
rest of the South African industry. This reflects the way in which the South African environmental legislation is broadening its scope and with which it keeps up with international trends.
Together with the advances in environmental legislation, the implementation of industry-driven environmental management systems has been expanding at a large rate. An example of such a system is the ISO14001 environmental management standard. Within this context, a company
volunteers to adopt a well-defined environmental management system that includes efficient mitigation of environmental impacts. The EMS is audited on a regular basis and provides the public with a clear indication that the company acts in a way that is environmentally responsible. The
ISO14001 environmental standard has played a large role in bringing about an improvement in air quality and water quality in Europe. Areas in Germany (e.g. the Ruhr Valley) that were known for high levels of pollution are today examples of clean environments. On the other hand the majority of companies that trade internationally are required to satisfy the requirements of the ISO14001 standard. Companies often argue that ISO14001 certification is expensive, but the International Standards Organisation has gone out its way to make the implementation of environmental
management systems (within ISO14001) cost-effective.
It is often not recognised that industry-driven environmental management systems complement the requirements for compliance to the existing environmental legislation. Any company that embarks on obtaining environmental certification also minimises the possibility that it may be non-compliant to environmental legislation. This is because, in obtaining certification, a company needs to consider each of its environmental impacts individually and how it plans to address each of these impacts. In addressing non-compliance to the rapidly evolving environmental legislation, a company can therefore follow several approaches and can tailor its solution to the specific circumstances within which it operates. Companies or individuals interested in learning more about the subject can enrol for a Short Course on Environmental Compliance, presented by Continuing Education at University of Pretoria, on 10 – 14 November 2014. For more information contact Prof Willem Ferguson on
willemferguson@zoology.up.ac.za