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Environmental Impact

CSR 2016 – Boskalis

28

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