Sasol Integrated Report 2024 - Book - Page 74
INTRODUCTION
ABOUT SASOL
STRATEGIC OVERVIEW
BUSINESSES
ESG
REMUNERATION REPORT
DATA AND ASSURANCE / ADMINISTRATION
ENVIRONMENT
AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT
OUR COMMITMENT
OUR GROUP APPROACH
We are committed to a holistic air quality management
approach, which is appropriately informed by
internationally accepted practices. We are dedicated
to engaging and collaborating with our stakeholders
on our improvement commitments and
associated progress.
Sasol’s Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) policy underpins our risk-based approach to mitigate
and improve our atmospheric footprint. This includes ongoing efforts to prevent pollution and enable
ambient air quality improvement through legal compliance and the application of duty of care.
To this end, we participate constructively in policy and regulatory development processes as well
as in community initiatives. We monitor our performance, report to the authorities on it and disclose
appropriately to our stakeholders.
PERFORMANCE AND INITIATIVES
Our air quality landscape
Our Southern African operations depend on coal and gas as primary
feedstocks. Our Natref facility in Sasolburg relies on crude oil.
Outside Southern Africa, our international operations depend on a
diverse portfolio including gas and crude-oil-derived feedstocks.
Community engagement
Engagement with authorities
We sustained our engagements with communities in Sasolburg
and Secunda aimed at the transparent disclosure of our air quality
performance and progress on associated improvement roadmaps.
In support of the South African government’s policy and
regulatory endeavours to improve air quality, we engage
constructively at a local, provincial and national level.
The emissions from our operations that rely on coal as a feedstock
in South Africa make up the greatest portion of our contribution to
the relevant airsheds. Sasol is executing against it’s decarbonisation
approach, which over time is expected to also have a significant
positive impact on our atmospheric footprint.
Innovative solutions
In FY24, we engaged with the National Air Quality Officer (NAQO)
on the performance of our operations, disclosing information
required for the purposes of improving ambient air quality.
Managing air quality in South Africa
In FY24, we continued efforts to reduce our impact on air quality.
These are focused on compliance with regulatory requirements,
development of innovative solutions and constructive engagements
with stakeholders including our fenceline communities
and regulatory authorities.
Retaining our licence to operate
We continued to make significant progress towards compliance
with the Minimum Emission Standards (MES). These are improvement
standards prescribed for specific substances related to specific
activities. We are advancing our commitments as outlined in our
air quality compliance roadmaps and are in the last stretch of this
journey to meet our agreed obligations by 1 April 2025. We disclose
our compliance challenges and collaborate with the authorities in
addressing these.
For more detail on our progress refer to environmental compliance pages 91 – 92.
We worked to develop and implement various innovative solutions,
including abatement projects that use technologies compatible with
our mature plants. These include:
• Sasolburg Ekandustria Operations (SEO) is conducting a trial
on co-feeding of biomass to its coal-fired boilers. The aim
is to transition to more sustainable fuel sources, thereby
reducing the dependence on coal.
• Co-feeding biosludge to gasification at our Secunda
Operations (SO) is still in construction – a stream that
is currently incinerated will be routed to our gasification
process to produce syngas from biosludge and move up
the waste hierarchy.
• We completed studies on treatment solutions for High Organic
Water (HOW) at SO. This stream will be routed to the existing
bio-basins, diverting it from incineration and improving air
quality. The project is on track to achieve beneficial operation.
• We continued to collaborate with third parties to find
solutions to move our High Sulphur Pitch waste stream
away from landfill or incineration. Pilot trials are being
executed to find the optimal solution.
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We also participated at multi-stakeholder consultation sessions
with the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the
Environment (DFFE) on the revision of the MES for South Africa,
the proposed priority area and dust regulations, as well as on
Sasol’s 12A application.
