Does your company have a publicly available commitment to respect human rights? If so, please provide a link.
Mulilo is committed to open dialogue and building trustful and lasting relationships with all communities surrounding our wind and solar developments. At each site, there is an “Incidents & Complaints Register” which can be used to raise any grievance. The project team is committed to respond to all grievances promptly. Should the individual wish to lodge the complaint anonymously, contact details for the Environmental Control Officer, the client and principle contractor are provided on the project sign board at the site entrance.
As a proudly South African organisation, we have invested in our communities and are working to establish a foundation for success and longstanding sustainability. Mulilo envisions this to be in the form of: skills training, access to reliable energy, education, health care and increased infrastructure and enterprise development.
Does your company identify its salient human rights issues and does it have a due diligence process to manage them? If so, please list the issues and describe the due diligence process (key steps include: impact assessment, integrating & acting on findings, tracking responses & communicating how impacts are addressed).
An Environmental Authorisation is required for all our solar and wind projects. Depending on the scale of the project and its location, either a Basic Assessment (BA) or Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is required. The purpose of the BA and EIA is to assess impacts (positive and negative) associated with the proposed development and where applicable, integrate the findings of these assessments into the development, either through amendments to the final layout or recommendations which are carried through to the Environmental Management Programme (EMP). Issues raised during the public consultation are recorded in the “Comments and Response Report” which is provided to the competent authority for their decision making process. Copies of the EIA, BA and EMP are made available to the public at local libraries and on the consultant’s website. The general public and registered Interested and Affected Parties are notified of the competent authority’s decision on the project.
What criteria does your company use to identify communities that may be affected by renewable energy projects it is involved in?
A social impact assessment is conducted during the EIA or BA process. Affected communities are identified mainly through geographic scope. The geographic scope varies between projects, but is based on aspects such as: proximity to the project and powerline and transportation networks.
How does your company consult with affected communities (on impact assessments, resettlement, benefit sharing plans, etc.)? Please describe what form consultations take and when they are carried out in a project’s cycle.
Consultations take place at various stages of the projects lifetime:
- Project design and development phases. Initial consultations are held with affected landowners.
- Environmental approval process. During this stage, the broader community are informed about the project and invited to participate in the process.
- Construction phase. During the construction phase, ongoing consultation with the local community is facilitated by the Community Liaison Officer. In addition, affected landowners are informed when disruptive activities (such as blasting) occurs and provided warning should live-stock need to be moved from an affected area.
- Operation phase. Establishment of a community trust to improve the social welfare of affected communities and maintaining regular contact throughout the facilities lifetime.
Does your company ensure its consultations include the perspectives and respect the rights of all affected community members (including those who may be marginalised for reasons of gender, social status, age, religion, wealth or income or other considerations)? How is this ensured?
During the environmental assessment process (EIA or BA), extensive consultation with affected communities is carried out. Should there be a request for further consultation, focus group meetings will be scheduled.
Under what circumstances does your company commit to seeking an affected community’s free, prior & informed consent to a project? Please provide examples of projects where free, prior & informed consent was sought (if applicable).
Mulilo is committed to ensure that our solar and wind projects have minimal impact on the affected communities. Public consultation is undertaken during the environmental authorisation process and is therefore prior to consent being issued by the competent authority. Public consultation was carried out for all our projects.
What is your company’s process for obtaining and evaluating free, prior & informed consent?
An independent environmental assessment practitioner is appointed to conduct the environmental assessment process. During the environmental assessment process, public consultation is mandatory and in order to obtain consent, sufficient opportunity to participate must be provided to affected communities.
Has your company faced any challenges in its process to seek free, prior & informed consent for renewable energy projects? If so, please describe what steps your company has taken to overcome these challenges.
No. Community support has been obtained for all our projects.
What steps does your company take to ensure that its own personnel, private security companies it contracts with, and/or government forces providing security to its projects, respect the rights of workers and community members, including those who may oppose its projects?
The Environmental Management Plan, which includes social and environmental standards, is part of the contractual documents. Each site has at least one dedicated Health and Safety Officer and Environmental Officer. An independent contractor undertakes a monthly audit of al contractors and sub-contractors on labour related aspects.
Does your company have a grievance mechanism in place at each project site for affected communities and workers to raise concerns about local impacts, including human rights abuses? If so, were affected communities involved in the design of the grievance mechanism, including its set-up and the types of remedies it provides?
Complaints can be lodged in the “Incidents and Complaints Register”. Alternatively, the complaints can be discussed with the Community Liaison Officer or can be addressed to the Environmental Control Officer. Worker grievances are primarily managed by the construction contractors, but can be escalated if required.
Please provide any further information regarding your company’s policies and practices on human rights that you think is relevant.
In terms of section 51 of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA), we are required to compile a manual providing members of the public and our stakeholders with certain minimum information about our various companies (Manual).
An original copy of the Manual must be lodged with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), a hard copy kept at our registered address and a copy on our website.
The original 31 December 2015 deadline for lodging the Manual with the SAHRC was extended last year. The Minister of Justice and Correctional Services has granted an extension of five years as from 1 January 2016 (gazetted on 11 December 2015). We are therefore no longer required to lodge Manuals but have drafted them for each one of our Projects which we will put up on our website in due course.