22 November 2006

"Greater challenges ahead" as quarry industry in Scotland examines health and the environmentment

The Quarry Products Association Scotland's biennial health, safety and environment conference took place at Scottish Natural Heritage's Battleby Conference Centre, near Perth, on Thursday 16 November. With a series of high-profile speakers from across the public and private sectors giving their views on how the quarrying industry operates environmentally and socially, the overwhelming message was that significant progress has been made, but there are greater challenges ahead.

With the morning session focusing on health and safety, key note speaker Jeanette Reuben, Head of Operations (Scotland) for Construction at the Health and Safety Executive, praised an industry where "lives had been saved and less harm had been caused over the last five years". She put this improvement down to more effective sharing of best practice amongst the industry, citing trade associations such as the QPA as being vital in driving improvement. With measures such as the QPA's own incident reduction Hard Target and advisory resources, Ms Reuben commented that "industry is beginning to see the real business benefit in effective health and safety".

However, she did urge caution in her address, and said that, in spite of "significant progress" in reducing accidents, the industry statistics still show that those that do occur are in too-familiar areas. "Trips and falls and transport-related incidents are still occurring", she explained, "and the key to eradicating these problems all together is through stronger leadership and the development of a culture where every manager and worker demonstrates ownership of their own safety and that of their colleagues".

With attention switching to environmental issues in the afternoon, the session was opened by Sandy Cameron, Head of Environmental Futures for the Scottish Executive. Mr Cameron outlined the increased profile of environmental issues within the media, Government and Society in general. He said "the green debate is not going to go away and the aggregates industry needs to be prepared for even more stringent monitoring and judgement when it comes to the environment". He praised efforts made by the quarrying industry in controlling its impact on the environment, citing "undeniable improvements" in practice as helping its image. However, he explained that "some radical thinking is needed within the industry to tackle climate change and, at a local level, more and more communication will be needed with communities to ensure quarrying avoids unfair and ill-informed criticism".

The final speaker of the day, Scottish Natural Heritage's Director John Thomson, echoed Sandy Cameron's thoughts on the raising profile of climate change and suggested that "Scotland has the perfect make-up for people to meet and work together for a sustainable future". He also made the connection between a "healthy environment supporting a strong economy" and took it one step further by explaining that "health and wellbeing comes from a well managed environment and minerals operators should take every opportunity to take that on board."

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. For more information please contact Tim Parry by tel: 0207 9638000 or e-mail parry@qpa.org

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