Social
Providing clients with effective solutions that also serve the needs and improve the quality of life of communities.
Environmental
Working to protect the environment and respecting ecological diversity, within the Earth’s sustainable limits.
Economic
Using our expertise to deliver value and create and distribute wealth.
To demonstrate our commitment, we have produced a report examining our UK business. MWH’s “Sustainable Development Report for 2002” charts recent progress in the UK and looks forward to the future. The report, which can be viewed on our website (euroweb.mw.com/pdf/report2002.pdf), or obtained on CD, uses categories of the Global Reporting Initiative. As you would expect MWH also operates an Environmental Management System with accreditation to ISO 14001.
The emphasis within MWH is in the practical application of principles of sustainability to bring tangible benefits for our clients and the communities that they serve.
MWH’s APPROACH
Delivering Sustainable Development
It is MWH’s experience that the challenge of applying a balanced approach to sustainable development (SD) across programmes and projects, far from causing extra cost and delay, can act as a driver for innovation and better risk management, provided it is integrated in a practical way into the delivery process.
Our approach is fundamentally about focusing existing skills through the “lens” of sustainability. With this in mind MWH has a dedicated knowledge community that brings together specialist global expertise from a range of technical disciplines acting together to deliver integrated sustainable solutions.
Sustainable development: The Project Lifecycle
Examples of key influences of a practical SD approach on value enhancement, cost-saving and risk management can be shown by means of the project life cycle overlain by the “Value Curve”.
As with other aspects of value and risk management, the earliest interventions provide the greatest opportunities.
Appropriate engagement with stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle is fundamental to project success, and therefore central to MWH’s approach. Further details of how MWH applies SD principles to each of these five stages are given below.
Benefits
Strategy and planning
By taking time to understand core business and corporate social responsibility objectives, MWH helps clients to derive a set of strategic sustainability principles for application to programmes and individual projects. These principles might be driven from recognition of need such as:
- Responsible management of natural resources
- Conservation of land and biodiversity
- Communication and engagement with stakeholders
- Increased equity across local and global communities
Through the use of a set of “Challenge Questions” applied to investment drivers, MWH helps ensure that the fundamental scope and scale of projects are founded on these principles.
In addition to assisting clients review their own project drivers, MWH reviews the sustainability of environmental regulatory requirements using cost-benefit analysis and other comparative techniques. For example, through the use of integrated catchment modelling, the impacts of effluent discharges can be accurately assessed, so that consents of an appropriate standard can be set, whilst minimising other environmental impacts. Furthermore, a sustainable approach to other aspects, such as energy use, will assist in meeting OPEX efficiency targets and other economic, legislative obligations.
Feasibility and Optioneering: Sustainable Solutions
Following determination of project scope and scale, the challenge is to find the most sustainable solution to meet the performance requirements.
MWH has expertise in applying the well-established “Best Practical Environmental Option” methodology, which provides a systematic basis for options development and decision making.
MWH has extended the methodology to allow choice within a range of site specific social, environmental and economic criteria, as well as a set of generic sustainability criteria, tailored to suit clients’ objectives.
This approach enables a full range of options and technologies to be compared fairly against a balanced range of criteria, some of which might normally be dismissed in a more traditional approach. Examples specific to the water industry include:
- Catchment approach (e.g. source control/protection, abstraction suited to yield)
- Demand management/leakage control
- Separation of foul/storm water
- Low energy treatment options
- Sludge-free processes
- Effluent and sludge re-use
- Treatment technologies appropriate to risk, mode and consequence of failure
Robust analysis of criteria and options in this way allows an integrated approach to options evaluation that takes full account of sustainability within the context of individual cases.
MWH is currently working with UKWIR in developing a best practice approach for the water industry with the aim of bringing together much of this thinking for smaller wastewater treatment plants.
Sustainable Design, Procurement and Construction
MWH recognises the importance of making SD practical for engineers working to deliver frontline projects. We are working with clients to develop pragmatic decision making processes for design and move towards more sustainable projects, through the use of effective procedures to integrate SD into project delivery without increasing costs.
To help meet an agreed set of sustainability objectives, projects are screened on key criteria, such as value. “Quick Win” opportunities are applied to those below the threshold, helped by advisory datasheets on specific components such as:
- Aggregates
- Energy
- Pipes and pipelines
- Pumps and pumping
- Recycling
- Tanks
- Buildings
For projects above the threshold, sustainability action plans are prepared with the help of an in-house SD team. Recorded actions allow achievements to be audited.
This approach enables decisions on building footprint, hydraulic design and construction materials that minimise environmental impact whilst maximising benefit to both the client and the community. Following successful pilots, these procedures are being rolled out within MWH across the UK.
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