Approximately 74% of our facilities are in water-stressed catchments. We are aware of this emerging risk, as well as the potential for compound social and environmental risks to emerge in relation to a worsening water and climate change situation. We have a high-level understanding of the nature of the risk for our own operations, but need to get a true sense of our risk exposure and the status of the catchments within which we operate. We also need to do this for our supply chain, as we may face direct supplier-related water risk in the areas we source from, including areas outside of South Africa.

Our approach is informed by compliance requirements, particularly the National Water Act, and municipal by-laws that set freshwater allocations, and effluent discharge permits and limits. Our effluent is tested by accredited labs in accordance with the South African National Standards (SANS). We are actively identifying and implementing water-use reduction initiatives across our sites. Both our water and energy optimisation initiatives are driven by our process optimisation department.

Management

We have set a 2030 water intensity reduction target. We conduct an annual goal-setting process at the start of each financial year, based on our 2030 goals, current performance and any initiatives planned. Our annual target for 2022 was to achieve a 6% reduction in water intensity, which we have achieved.

Informed by the “deep dive” into our environmental performance this year see safety, security, health and environment (SSHE), we focused much attention on improving our water monitoring and reporting. We have intensified our monitoring and reporting of onsite water-use, and have initiated a regime of daily measurement across our sites to enable a rapid response to any anomalies. We do weekly reporting, and a more in-depth monthly report and check on performance and the progress of key actions. This is currently done manually, but the new data management and reporting system we are to implement, will improve the efficiency of this process (see safety, security, health and environment (SSHE)).

Our water-use intensity is highest at our S&T, Baby, LAF and Boksburg sites. Opportunities to reduce water-use intensity have been identified at many sites, and further opportunities will be identified once we complete our planned installation of water meters. Another key challenge has been effluent compliance, yet this year we successfully reduced our effluent-related risk across almost all our sites.

In 2022, we recorded an 8,3% decrease in absolute water-use from the previous year, and a 7,1% decrease in water-use intensity (kl/tonne) over the period. Closer monitoring of water consumption through more frequent measurements has enabled quicker response to leaks and other water-use inefficiencies.