Zutari celebrates Earth Day 2022 with its inaugural sustainability report
“We work as a team, together with our clients, our communities and end users. Our highly skilled and experienced multidisciplinary teams push boundaries to help economies grow. Our projects cross markets, disciplines and geographies, creating a footprint of impact and engineered solutions that is reframing our world,” comments Sonja de Klerk, Lead of Quality, Environment & Sustainability at Zutari.
Zutari’s heritage company Aurecon commenced with GRI aligned sustainability reporting in 2014, making this its eighth sustainability report and the first one under the Zutari brand. Following due process, Zutari extended its operations to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar at the end of 2020. Operations in these offices will be included in future reporting.
Subsidiary Zutari Africa Ltd. is a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). “We embrace sustainability. It is Zutari’s purpose to co-create an engineered impact that enables environments, communities, and economies to thrive. We also renew our ongoing commitment to this initiative and the Ten UNGC Principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption,” notes Daka.
Among numerous awards, Zutari was ranked 30 out of 53 global companies on Fortune magazine’s 2020 ‘Change the World’ list. Embracing digital technologies has enabled Zutari to co-create projects remotely, resulting in a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. In the health and safety space, it continues its initiatives to support the mental health of its staff and to destigmatise this important issue.
Zutari actively promotes the enhancement of social and environmental performance in its projects, particularly during the project planning phase, and will continue with this initiative in FY22. It has also revisited the Codes that govern and shape its behaviours. “These Codes are the essence of what defines us and how we conduct ourselves. All legacy integrity management policies were updated to reflect Zutari’s requirements and the culture we aspire to. Our staff continue to have access to a variety of career development and training programmes which we enhance on a continuous basis,” says Daka.
“In order to have a real and positive impact on major threats like climate change, water and resource scarcity and pollution, we need to look at our projects. As engineers and advisors, we are ideally positioned to take our knowledge and skills to scale by finding better design solutions for our clients and our planet,” says de Klerk.
“We need to ensure that our own operations have responsible environmental footprints and minimise any adverse effects of our activities as much as possible. We have been measuring the environmental performance of our operations for more than half a decade and made good progress in managing our greenhouse emissions. We also manage the use of water and consumables and our waste in a responsible way,” highlights de Klerk. “Many of our projects illustrate the progress we have made in this regard.”
Growing out of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earthday.org is the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working with more than 150 000 partners in over 192 countries to drive positive action for the planet. Every Earth Day can drive a year of energy, enthusiasm, and commitment to create a new plan of action for our planet.
It states: “Our world needs transformational change. It is time for the world to hold sectors accountable for their role in our environmental crisis while also calling for bold, creative, and innovative solutions. This will require action at all levels, from business and investment to city and national government.”
Ends
Notes to the Editor
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About Zutari
As engineering consultants and trusted advisors, Zutari co-creates an engineered impact that enables environments, communities and economies to thrive. Few others can match our local capacity, long-standing presence and understanding of the challenges required to operate successfully across various regions in Africa and the Middle East.
We have created an impact across Africa for almost 90 years (1932 to 2022) and remain committed to this continent, making us the perfect partner to those less familiar with working in Africa. We are experienced in international projects and our Global Design Centres allow us to bring world-class solutions to our clients.
As a private management-owned company, our commitment is true and we have vested interest in our clients’ success. Our strong relationships allow us to connect the right expertise, processes and resources to match client’s needs and bring stakeholders that have shared interests together.
Zutari Contact
Rashree Maharaj
PR and Media Advisor
Email: Rashree [dot] Maharaj [at] zutari [dot] com
Tel: (012) 427 2000
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