In August 2018 we committed to a 5-Year Environment Strategy to ensure we improve our environmental performance.

This program and associated implementation plan includes a portfolio of projects that have been prioritised with regard to environmental benefit, focusing on both fundamental operational changes as well as cultural change.

The improvement program is made up of both capital expenditure and culture change projects.

Investment was initially estimated at $260M over the next 5 years to reduce short and long-term environmental risks. Now that projects and solutions have been designed, this estimated investment will be $400M.  It will improve performance in the areas of:     

• Air quality (dust and alkali)
• Odour
• Water
• Land

QAL recognises that the culture of an organisation is a significant factor impacting the environmental performance of a business. QAL is redefining the way our employees look at our environmental risk by:

• Adopting a process safety management system that will identify critical controls for major hazards, which are very closely associated with environmental issues, and
• Empowering all our employees and contractors to have due and proper consideration of environmental obligations an risk in their everyday tasks.

View the 5-year plan fact sheet (2018)	View the 3-year progress update

View the full program with project detail 

Watch our latest Project Update video below, to give a summary on what the 5-YES projects team has been working on in Q3 2021 and Q4 2022.

Implementation plan

QAL is committed to delivering over 60 projects that will deliver an improvement in environmental performance across all the areas listed above. The 5 year implementation plan can be accessed via the link below. This document gives a detailed overview on the projects we have committed to and how we are tracking against each. 

The variance in the capital spend of up to the $400M figure allows for development of project solutions as they come to light through the detailed investigation phase. Projects will become more defined through the study and engineering phases and will allow the performance indicator to estimate the anticipated environmental improvement more accurately. As at the end of 2020, several projects are still in design phases so this figure will continue to change until all project solutions are fully designed.

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q1 2022

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q4 2021

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q3 2021

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q2 2021

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q1 2021

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q4 2020

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q3 2020

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q2 2020

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q1 2020

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q4 2019

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q2 2019

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q1 2019

Implementation Plan Progress Update Q4 2018

Understanding the Implementation Plan documents

The environmental projects and their expected benefit will be discussed in further detail at our Community Advisory Committee sessions.  Please email us if you would like information on attending these sessions or have questions regarding any of the projects in the implementation plan.

Project phases:

Order of Magnitude - Identify the issue and what operational improvements need to occur to bring the highest benefit or improvement. Select the most feasible project to study further.  

Study - Projects shown in study phase are at the earliest part of the implementation process and require work to identify and assess options that will deliver the required environmental outcome. The outcome of the study phase is to determine the best option to take to the engineering phase.

Engineering - The engineering phase is where the detailed work is carried out to allow the project to move into the final execution phase. This covers traditional mechanical, civil, structural, process and electrical engineering input, which will provide a detailed design that can be constructed to meet the required Australian, Queensland and QAL standards.

Execution - The output of the engineering phase will be a package of work that will generally include a number of deliverables that will be tracked during the execution phase. The type and complexity of the project will determine the number of deliverables required and how the deliverables are phased, as some may need to be finished before another can begin.