Wayne Osborn, Managing Director, Alcoa of Australia
Mural Hall, Parliament House, Canberra
9 August 2006
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It is my great pleasure to be here today at what is a very exciting event for not only Alcoa and Greening Australia, but also for the future of our natural environment.
I must confess that as an avid sailor and someone who spends a great deal of my leisure time on the water, I feel a strong personal connection to the River Recovery program and what it represents.
But I don’t think I am alone here.
Most Australians would relate to feeling a connection to the water – it is an intrinsic part of our unique lifestyle and most of us have spent time as kids on or around the local river.
The river has long been the place where people come together – it is a place shared by our local communities which belongs to all of us.
But rivers are not just an important cultural icon in this country.
Our waterways are the lifeblood of our economy – helping to fuel our agricultural industry and booming resources sector.
They are also the source of our essential drinking water, which as we are all aware, needs to be protected and conserved.
All of these factors are behind Alcoa’s support for River Recovery.
But perhaps the most critical connection we have to the program is its core focus on sustainability.
At Alcoa, sustainability is central to the way we do business.
It is deeply ingrained in our culture and is the core element running through each of our processes and projects.
And this focus does not stop outside our front gate.
Sustainability defines how we interact with the communities where our operations are centred.
It is fundamental in our approach to the external environment – including our natural landscape.
Historically, Alcoa has been recognised as a leader in environmental management and we have had a long-standing dedication to boosting the regional sustainability of the areas where we operate.
Alcoa has been involved in land management and revegetation since the mid-1960s when we appointed our first environmental scientist to work on mine-site rehabilitation.
By 1975 a small environmental research group had formed and by 1990 our practices were recognised as industry-leading.
In those early days of land management, we began to understand the importance of engaging with our local communities and sharing our expertise with them.
Our own revegetation efforts flowed into outreach initiatives such as supporting external tree planting initiatives, providing seed and trees, and becoming a significant contributor to the national land care effort.
And we continued to improve our own revegetation techniques.
Today we are proud to have achieved 100% botanical richness in mined areas. That’s an important milestone which means the rehabilitated areas have the same botanical diversity as uncleared areas.
That team of environmental scientists working on bauxite mine site rehabilitation in Western Australian today numbers close to thirty and includes experts in dieback control, biodiversity, fauna return, and water catchment management.
And our support for land care has continued to strengthen.
In the past two decades Alcoa has committed over $21 million to community, environmental and land care projects in Australia.
But our involvement has not just been financial.
With a reputation as the world leader in mine site revegetation we think we have a little more to offer.
Some may refer to it as building community capacity.
But to us it is just the right way to operate our business.
In the twenty four years that we have worked in partnership, the Alcoa - Greening Australia alliance has resulted in the planting of over 10 million trees and the rehabilitation of thousands of hectares of degraded land.
Over time the focus of our partnership has evolved to reflect the changing needs of the community and the environment.
What hasn’t changed is our commitment.
In June this year we launched a new joint initiative to empower Alcoa employees and their families to tackle global warming.
Another example of taking the community along with us on an environmental issue which we view as having critical importance.
Globally, Alcoa has taken a voluntary leadership position on addressing climate change and we are proud of the achievements we have been able to make in reducing our own greenhouse footprint.
We set ourselves an aggressive target to reduce direct global greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent compared to 1990 levels.
We achieved this in 2003 - seven years early.
At a local level we have reduced direct emissions at our Victorian smelting operations by 55 per cent compared with 1990 levels.
Our Anglesea Power Station operates better than the Australian Greenhouse Office’s Generator Efficiency Standard benchmark.
And the product we make is playing a key role.
The use of aluminium in transport leads to lighter vehicles, with better fuel efficiency and less greenhouse emissions.
Every kilogram of aluminium used in a car potentially saves a net 20 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions over the car’s life.
As a metal, aluminium can also be endlessly recycled and in recycling we save 95% of the energy needed to make new metal.
Alcoa is the largest recycler of aluminium in the Australia.
We believe it makes sense for us to take our own learnings on climate change, resource management and emissions reduction and share them with our local communities.
Through the newly launched ‘Make an Impact’ program, our 6,000 employees will be become ambassadors for climate change.
They will aim to reduce their collective household greenhouse gas emissions by 21,000 tonnes over three years.
We believe that by working together, and building capacity in our local communities, we can achieve real outcomes on climate change.
Which brings me back to our support for River Recovery.
We have committed $2.3 million over three years to the River Recovery program, but we plan to get our hands dirty as well.
As a company whose operations are centred in river localities, the health of our rivers and waterways is of critical interest to our local communities.
Through our partnership with Greening Australia we plan to empower both our people and local communities to make a real difference.
By facilitating on-the-ground restoration projects around our sites we are connecting landholders and smaller environmental groups to the larger River Recovery movement.
And building the knowledge, expertise and capacity of the communities where we live and work.
Alcoa is also deeply engaged in River Recovery at a strategic level.
Our Manager of Mines, Bill Knight, who leads our mining and rehabilitation operation, will head the program’s advisory panel.
As chair of the national Business and Science Leaders River Recovery Roundtable, Bill will oversee the team of scientists, business leaders and environmental experts who will provide strategic guidance and leadership to the River Recovery initiative.
To Alcoa, partnership is about more than just sponsorship.
It is about engagement at all levels, it is about knowledge sharing, it is about capacity building and most importantly, it is about sustainability.
We are proud to be a part of this initiative, and look forward to sharing our achievements as we work together to restore those waterways that are so precious to all of us – industry, agriculture, community … and even the weekend sailors like me.
Thank you
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Read the media release on the River Recovery Launch
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