South East Queensland Division

Workable Environmental Management Plan's (EMP) forum

Date:               2 November 2006

Time:              2.00pm - 6.00pm  

Venue:            Riverside Auditorium, Level 6, 123 Eagle Street, Brisbane.

As part of the environmental approval process for a new development project an environmental assessment and accompanying EMP is usually developed. The EMP at this stage of the process is developed to the planning level, which is typically a high level document that indicates policy requirements, implementation strategy, monitoring and auditing and reporting requirements. It does not explicitly detail exactly where or how these measures are to occur as this is not required at this stage of the approval process. It is often not until the contract for the project is awarded that the planning EMP is developed further into for example a construction EMP (CEMP).

It may be reasonably argued that focus on a CEMP is also limiting as an EMP is equally applicable to design (including concepts), commissioning and operation. And often these conditions are included. Also an EMP is only a plan and may be useful for advocacy, policy, regulation and other environmental tasks.

At this stage of the project, there is the potential for the client to be exposed to risks if the EMP does not adequately incorporate the commitments of the EMP. However incorporation of this information into the EMP can lead to a EMP that is not workable or easily implemented. This may expose the contractor/developer to risks of environmental harm and non compliance. In addition, it may lead to contractual risks.

This forum was aimed at discussion to make the process more seamless and to reduce the risk of these issues occurring. We looked at factors such as:   

• What is required from a regulators perspective?  What are they looking for when approving EMP’s?
• What are the most effective tools i.e. Environmental Work Plans, Visual Aids for the contractor to ensure adequate delivery of the EMP requirements?
• What do we currently do well?” “What could be done better?”
• What is the most effective and seamless way of developing a planning EMP to for example a construction level EMP? What gets lost in translation?
   

The presentations from this forum are now available, click on the presentation below to download.
 

In addition to the above documentation, click here to visit the EPA website to download the "Guidelines for preparing Environmental Management Plans".

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