Greater challenges ahead for the quarrying industry
SIGNIFICANT progress has been made, but there are greater challenges ahead. This was the overwhelming message from a series of high-profile speakers from across the public and private sectors, who were giving their views on how the quarrying industry operates both environmentally and socially, at the Quarry Products Association Scotland’s biennial health, safety and environment conference, which took place earlier this month at Scottish Natural Heritage’s Battleby Conference Centre, near Perth.
With the morning session focusing on health and safety, keynote speaker Jeanette Reuben, Head of Operations (Scotland) for Construction at the Health and Safety Executive, praised an industry where ‘lives had been saved and less harm had been caused over the last five years’. She put this improvement down to more effective sharing of best practice throughout the industry, citing trade associations such as the QPA as being vital in driving improvement. With measures such as the QPA’s own incident-reduction Hard Target and advisory resources, Ms Reuben commented that ‘industry is beginning to see the real business benefit in effective health and safety’.
However, she did urge caution in her address, and said that, in spite of ‘significant progress’ in reducing accidents, industry statistics still show that those that do occur are in all too familiar areas. ‘Trips and falls and transport-related incidents are still occurring,’ she explained, ‘and the key to eradicating these problems altogether is through stronger leadership and the development of a culture where every manager and worker demonstrates ownership of their own safety and that of their colleagues.’
With attention switching to environmental issues in the afternoon, the session was opened by Sandy Cameron, Head of Environmental Futures for the Scottish Executive. Mr Cameron outlined the increased profile of environmental issues within the media, government and society in general. He said: ‘The green debate is not going to go away and the aggregates industry needs to be prepared for even more stringent monitoring and judgement when it comes to the environment.’
He praised efforts made by the quarrying industry in controlling its impact on the environment, citing ‘undeniable improvements’ in practice as helping its image. However, he explained that ‘some radical thinking is needed within the industry to tackle climate change and, at a local level, more communication will be needed with communities to ensure quarrying avoids unfair and ill-informed criticism’.
The final speaker of the day, Scottish Natural Heritage’s director John Thomson, echoed Mr Cameron’s thoughts on the increasing profile of climate change and suggested that ‘Scotland has the perfect make-up for people to meet and work together for a sustainable future’. He also made the connection between a ‘healthy environment supporting a strong economy’ and took it one step further by explaining that ‘health and well-being comes from a well managed environment and minerals operators should take every opportunity to take that on board’.
