INSIGHT
TIME TO
COMMUNICATE
Kyleakin Quarry, Isle of Skye.
By Nico Pienaar
We can all think of sites that are, to put it at its most polite, unattractive; and it is those sites which
dictate the image of the more enlightened majority. As one operator puts it: “If you are doing just
enough to satisfy today’s environmental standards, then you can be sure that it won’t be enough
for tomorrow.”
T
he sites that continue to blight the
image of the quarry industry are
the ones where one vital human
trait is missing: pride. Many surface mining
companies are involved in the Aspasa
environmental audits, looking into the
principles of environmental audits. There
can be no doubt that this approach will
have an impact but, if you can manage to
tap that little emotion called ‘pride’ within
your workforce, then your environmental
programme will be altogether easier and
much more likely to be effective in the
longer term.
We all know from our own experience
that the sites which look best are the ones
where someone (and in some cases, it is
only one person) takes pride. The sites that
www.quarryonline.co.za
look grotty, on the other hand, are those
ones where no one cares.
There are a variety of techniques that can
be used to generate pride. One company
was considering paying their quarry
workers a ‘green bonus’ for achieving agreed
environmental standards. That route might
not be popular in today’s financial climate,
but there are other techniques that are not
so expensive.
A larger company might, for example,
generate pride by introducing a site-
care competition between their different
quarries. A gardening enthusiast might sow
the seeds of pride among his co-workers by
being encouraged to develop flower beds
at the entrance. Others might respond to
simply a series of school visits which put
their workplace under the local spotlight.
If it is to succeed, however, this type of
momentum, coming from the bottom, must
be met by a corresponding enthusiasm
filtering downwards from the very top of
a company.
Environmental performance
It is not just a matter of the managing
director telling the production manager to
tell the quarry manager to tell the foreman
to get the place tidied up. The people in
the boardroom must take a much more
positive and involved lead. Environmental
performance must feature as prominently
on their agenda as production performance
does. Targets must be set and pursued until
they are met.
QUARRY SA | MARCH/APRIL 2019_39