" Montigny continues to look to the future as the company grows aggressively, including plans to develop and construct a renewable energy biomass power plant within the next three years."
COVER STORY
Transmission poles.
" Montigny continues to look to the future as the company grows aggressively, including plans to develop and construct a renewable energy biomass power plant within the next three years."
It is a completely different thinking around fire-fighting that is based on scientific and accurate measurement,” says Rijkenberg. The approach seems to be working with impressive, immediate results with a significant reduction in hectare of timber lost to fires.
Montigny’ s commitment to adding value extends beyond its core business into the neighbouring communities and the country at large. Whenever possible, Montigny looks for ways to share knowledge and integrate sustainable development initiatives into their portfolio. Shying away from traditional charity initiatives, the company prioritises job creation and skills development through a breadth of value chains and projects that continue to evolve with the company’ s business.
Presently Montigny is ramping up two large-scale community based projects, Resin Tapping and Acacia Mearnsii or‘ Wattle’ Jungle Rehabilitation, which collectively expects to provide income and employment for more than 700 community members in the next four years. By offering training in resin tapping and smallholder forestry, both programmes offer additional income to interested members in Usutu’ s 30 neighbouring chiefdoms, which can be done in conjunction with existing employment commitments. Similar programmes have been successful in Montigny’ s other locations where the model allowed Montigny to share the fruit of its endeavours with neighbouring communities.
The company’ s leadership has been instrumental in one of the country’ s great success stories, the transformation of decommissioned mining village Bulembu. Bulembu has been granted a new lease of life through Bulembu Ministries Swaziland, the NGO responsible for starting several sustainable businesses and restoring basic social services to the community including a health clinic, schools, churches, training centres and other community organisations.
Montigny continues to look to the future as it continues to grow aggressively, including plans to develop and construct a sustainable biomass power plant within the next three years. In a country dependent on neighbouring countries for electricity, Montigny has the capacity to displace 23 % of the country’ s imports with locally produced, renewable energy.
Swaziland has the unique capacity to be the first country in Africa to generate 100 % of its power requirements from renewable resources, which include biomass, hydro, solar, energy efficiency measures and wind. By unlocking Swaziland’ s biomass energy potential, Montigny is leading the way for other aspiring Independent power producers by working closely with biomass consortiums and the government to develop policy and procedure.
Montigny’ s innovative approach to business and development offers a fresh model to the well-established sawmilling industry, as the company paves its own road into the future, one aspiration at a time. The company’ s ambitions for growth and continuous improvement have not abated as the operations stabilised, following the purchase of Usutu from Sappi South Africa three years ago. With the success of their non-traditional approach to forestry and sawmilling, many in the region will continue to follow the company’ s movements with interest in the months and years to come.
16 APRIL / MAY 2017 //