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Environmental Impact
CSR 2016 – Boskalis
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The urgent need to protect the world’s water resources and marine habitats means
that sustainability is essential to our business and is our license to operate. And so it
has never been more important for us to have a leading reputation for sustainable
solutions for the management and development of vulnerable river, delta and coastal
areas. In addition, mining firms and oil and gas companies are pushing the boundaries
in terms of the exploration of natural resources, which includes moving into highly
sensitive areas. Here again, our ability to offer leading-edge sustainable solutions in
increasingly challenging environments can create value. A substantial part of our work
is focused on ensuring we maintain a leading role, offering increasingly innovative
solutions to protect and preserve the natural environment.
Environmental AND SOCIAL Impact Assessments
Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) are widely used in our industry
as a tool for measuring the social and environmental impact of a project. You can
read more about this on
page 18. Every project is unique and requires a tailor-made
solution. We are renowned for our environmental expertise based on the innovative
Building with Nature program. We are able to optimize the sustainable execution of
our activities by applying environmentally-friendly techniques and working methods,
as well as advanced prediction models and monitoring systems.
BUILDING WITH NATURE
Launched in 2008, Building with Nature is a program aimed at developing
knowledge and design guidelines for maritime infrastructure, adopting the natural
system as a basic design principle. The program, part of the Dutch government’s
Top Sector policy, is executed by the EcoShape foundation, of which Boskalis was an
initiator. The foundation includes businesses, government agencies and research
institutes. An ever-increasing number of parties from various backgrounds participate
in the EcoShape foundation, including NGOs such as Wetlands International. The
Building with Nature program offers independent knowledge that clients, government
authorities and other stakeholders can use to make balanced decisions about the
integration of maritime infrastructure, nature and society.
The years of research and development have produced a lot of knowledge on Building
with Nature solutions. To ensure that this is also available to the engineers of the
future, we keep universities and higher vocational colleges informed about the
program and get them involved. This has led to the creation of various readerships,
guest lecturer positions and post-academic and other courses. In addition, Delft
University of Technology launched a Building with Nature Massive Open Online
Course (MOOC) in 2016, with thousands of participants from around the world.
Biodiversity and
Ecosystems