Environmental Management
The Environmental Management Services Division is a dynamic and vibrant team of highly skilled, experienced and professionally registered Environmental Practitioners. Zitholele offers a wide range of Environmental Management Services. These range from Integrated Environmental Authorisation Processes to Strategic Environmental Assessments. Zitholele aims to provide the client with environmental solutions that take cognisance of the project objectives and constraints, whilst ensuring that responsible design includes monitoring and management, thereby minimising the potential for environmental impact.
Zitholele has built up exceptional experience in the management of integrated environmental authorisation processes that include Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA’s), Waste Management Licenses (WML’s) and Water Use License Applications (WULA’s).
Zitholele employs experienced practitioners for each sphere of environmental consulting, allowing for focused attention to every aspect of an environmental process. Our practitioners are well-skilled at assimilating environmental processes with authority liaison and stakeholder engagement. Zitholele has good working relationships with various specialist consultants throughout the country and we are able to provide an outstanding team of expert specialists for any environmental authorisation process.
Environmental Authorisation Processes
Zitholele Consulting undertakes Basic Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment Processes according to the National Environmental Management Act (Act 107 of 1998 as amended) regulation requirements. Each project is assessed on its merits before the environmental process methodology is tailored to suit the requirements of the project. Zitholele utilises an unpretentious, comprehensive methodology for impact rating which is easily understood by stakeholders and the authorities. Our Environmental Authorisation Processes are conducted with the aim of identifying sensitive receiving environments, identifying significant potential impacts and providing practical and implementable mitigation measures.
Environmental Management Programmes
The Zitholele Environmental Authorisation Process informs the compilation of a user friendly Environmental Management Programme that is practical to implement, and takes cognisance of any existing management system applicable to the project. Our EMPr’s comply with the requirements of all relevant environmental legislation, and follow a convenient layout for implementation and auditing.
Zitholele is also effective at updating or amending existing EMPr’s with recent changes to project activities. As part of any environmental authorisation process, the EMPr compilation or update will take place as a fundamental component of the process.
Waste Management Licensing
Zitholele has been fortunate to have worked on four very large electricity generation projects in recent years, managing the Waste Management Licensing for waste disposal facilities. The technicality and comprehensive know-how required on these projects alone have developed Zitholele into one of the key environmental consulting practices in terms of waste management expertise. On these projects, Zitholele has managed knowledge and skills transfer between waste specialists and client engineers. The Zitholele environmental team has worked interactively with the Zitholele engineers to produce practical designs that achieve environmental approval from the key authorities, viz. the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Zitholele has vast experience in other spheres of waste management, including licensing carried out for the foundry industry, Waste Management Planning implemented for municipal clients and Integrated Water and Waste Management Plans undertaken for various and varied client industries.
Water use Licensing
Zitholele undertakes Water Use License Applications for a diverse range of proponents. These include electricity generation, distribution and transmission, municipal waste disposal facility operations, property developments and mining and foundry operations.
Due to on-going work in Water Use License Applications, Zitholele engineers and environmental practitioners have built relationships with the key officials at the Department of Water and Sanitation. Over the years, Zitholele has developed an implementation procedure for water use licensing that is acceptable to the authorities and streamlines timeframes for the process. Zitholele is also able to successfully integrate a Water Use Application with an Environmental Authorisation and/or Waste Management Licensing Process.
Environmental Auditing and Compliance
Our Environmental Compliance Department provides an array of services to assist with managing operations to ensure compliance to relevant licenses and environmental legislation. Zitholele offers Environmental Control Officer (ECO) services, which relate predominantly to frequent site assessments against the project EMPr and licenses. The ECO reports any incidents to the site manager in order for these to be mitigated within a short period. ECO’s are responsible for reporting all incidents to the relevant operations or site manager and bringing recurrent non-compliance to the attention of the site manager and the competent authority, as stipulated within the legislation.
Auditing is carried out as an independent service to the ECO role. Environmental auditing is carried out on a less frequent basis and may be either and internal audit or an external audit, depending on the needs of the client. An internal auditor will identify issues in preparation for an external audit. An external auditor will report findings to the competent authority.
Environmental Monitoring
Zitholele offers cost-effective and efficient water quality monitoring services for both groundwater and surface water monitoring. We use accredited and reliable laboratories and provide comprehensive but uncomplicated reporting. We utilise graphics to show trends in monitoring results. We are also available to discuss results with the client and propose improvement in management actions.
Zitholele is investigating exciting software for real-time client access to data and interpretation of results. This will make the monitoring process more quickly available for observation of incidents and inclinations in water quality
Other Services
Engineering
Zitholele Consulting’s Engineering division combines leading-edge Civil, Structural and Process Engineering with in-depth experience to deliver total solutions that satisfy the needs of our clients. A client-focused structure enables Zitholele Engineering to customise project solutions according to clients’ needs and budgets, whilst offering a full range of services, from project management, feasibility studies, planning, design, construction management and project closure.
Strategic Communication
Zitholele Consulting’s development Communication services are divided into awareness creation, public participation, development and implementation of communication strategies. These services are characterized by conceptual flexibility and diversity of communication techniques used to address our client’s communication challenges.