Environment
Balancing operational objectives with social licence ENVIROSUITE IS COMBINING ARTIFICIAL AND HUMAN INTELLIGENCE TO CREATE ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE, USING MEANINGFUL DATA TO MAKE EDUCATED DECISIONS FOR THE BEST OPERATIONAL AND SOCIAL OUTCOMES.
Envirosuite uses data to balance the objectives of a mining company and the community in which it operates.
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ddressing environmental challenges while maintaining productivity is a continuous balancing act for mining companies around the world. Companies need to consider factors such as noise, air quality, water quality, odour management, dust and vibration monitoring, not only for their site and workers but also the environment and communities in which they are based. These factors all contribute to their social licence to operate. Envirosuite’s software helps mining companies to achieve outcomes that allow them to continue working at a sustainable level of production, while ensuring local communities are not exposed to dangerous or annoying noises, odours and contaminants in the air. As Envirosuite’s lead for mining and industrial sectors Matt Scholl explains, the key part of getting mining companies
and the communities in which they operate on the same page is having a clear understanding of the environment around them, then presenting this information in a way that is easy to comprehend. “When it comes to better understanding the environment around a mining operation, there are two main stakeholders, the mining companies themselves and the community they operate in,” Scholl tells Safe to Work. “For the community, information needs to be presented slightly differently. A large proportion of the community aren’t scientists or technologically minded, so one of the things Envirosuite helps companies do is to present their information in a way that’s relatively easy to interpret. “For example, that might be presenting risks as colour coded indicators, like a traffic light approach, where everyone understands green is fine, orange is
SAFETOWORK.COM.AU 15 SEP-OCT 2020
caution so they might have to think about ways to improve, or red, which is a higher level of concern.” Presenting data in a way that is approachable for the community gives them a platform to discuss any issues and concerns, including within the local environment. This helps community engagement officers within mining companies, who combine this data with human intelligence to focus on community planning and communication for a mutually beneficial result. “Often community concerns are emotionally driven and just presenting them data isn’t going to resolve that emotional need,” Scholl explains. “What does resolve it is when community members see the mining operator has a person who is focussed on their needs and is using the data, they can share to inform them on how to best protect the community.” While data isn’t always the answer for communities, automating the process of gathering and presenting data gives people, such as community engagement officers the freedom to generate insights. This pushes human efforts and intelligence further up the value chain, automating tasks that are monotonous or repetitive, freeing up human intelligence to make decisions requiring a more thought out process or emotional intelligence. “It’s fair to say that connected networks providing data continuously
