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Impact on Local Communities
CSR 2016 – Boskalis
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Each project is unique and requires tailor-made solutions.
Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) are a
widely used tool to measure the social and environmental impact
of a project on the local community and the environment. They
are often prepared by or on behalf of our clients to comply with
legislation, before applications can be made for the necessary
permits. In most countries ESIAs are used by financiers like the
World Bank when clients apply for funding for their projects, and
by governments as part of permit applications. In turn our clients
require us to comply with the ESIA conditions relating to our part
of the work. To ensure that environmental and social risks are
identified and assessed and appropriate management is secured
we develop an Environmental and Social Monitoring Plan.
When it comes to defining how we address environmental
and social risks, we take into account the international
frameworks. In this respect we endorse the OECD Guidelines
for Multinational Enterprises.
We seek to avoid potential adverse impact arising from our
activities and services, and otherwise to mitigate or remedy this
impact. We exercise our leverage if we are in a position to
influence the entity responsible for the impact to bring about
change in the situation. Our ability to do so can be limited,
depending, for example, on the nature of the business
relationship. The influence we have over clients as opposed
to our influence over direct suppliers can vary widely.
In 2016, we launched the Social Impact program, which has
three objectives:
To increase awareness of our social impact and the international
frameworks within the company.
To develop a standard evaluation mechanism to identify projects
in the tender phase that have a (potential) higher risk profile.
Consistent application of our social impact principles and
procedures on projects.
Our approach is based on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational
Enterprises, the IFC Performance Standards, the OECD Common
Approaches, the Boskalis General Code of Business Conduct and
the Suppliers Code of Conduct.
For more information about our environmental impact and
our approach please refer to the chapter on biodiversity and
ecosystems on
pages 28-30.Environmental
and social impact
assessments
OECD GUIDELINE APPROACH to POTENTIAL ADVERSE IMPACT
Source: OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
Potential adverse impact
Socio-economic and/or
Environmental
Caused
by Boskalis
Remedy
actual impact
Cease or prevent
potential impact
Cease or
prevent
contribution to
impact
Use
leverage
to
mitigate remaining
impact as much as
possible
Contributed to
by Boskalis
Directly related
to Boskalis’ operations,
products or services, caused by a business
relation
Use
leverage
to influence the entity
causing the adverse impact to prevent
or mitigate the impact