sydney-city-centre-review-of-environmental-factors

8.3.4 Improved valuation, pricing and incentive mechanisms
The pricing of environmental resources involves placing a monetary value on natural
assets and services. The principle suggests that Roads and Maritime should:
Bear reasonable costs to avoid pollution risks and implement controls to
contain or abate pollution should it occur
Consider the lifecycle environmental, social and economic costs of building,
operating and maintaining the proposal
Implement the proposal’s environmental goals by enabling specialists to
identify the most cost-effective safeguards and management measures to
respond to its predicted environmental impacts.
As highlighted above, Roads and Maritime has committed to safeguards that would
reduce the likelihood of routine pollution occurring during the proposal’s construction
and operation to negligible levels.
Roads and Maritime has also committed to safe working methods to reduce the
likelihood of an accidental spillage or pollution event, whilst including further
precaution by implementing management measures to contain or abate pollution in
the exceptionally unlikely event that it should occur. Consequently, the proposal has
adopted the polluter-pays principle.
Roads and Maritime has also committed to the purchase of recycled materials and
materials with low-embodied energies where reasonable and feasible (refer to
section 6.13.3). These provisions serve to consider the lifecycle demand on natural
resources and their conservation. It has also committed to sourcing the materials
from local markets, including primary materials wherever possible. Finally, all
materials, construction staff and equipment, and waste would be obtained and
disposed of as close to the proposal footprint as possible (termed the ‘proximity
principle’). This would reduce the proposal’s wider secondary, indirect and lifecycle
impacts.
Finally, Roads and Maritime has developed environmental assessment guidance to
allow external parties to prepare its environmental assessment documentation.
These external parties comprise specialists who are competent in environmental
impact assessment and are experienced in identifying cost-effective safeguards
based on a hierarchy of avoidance over mitigation. In addition, Roads and Maritime
has its own in-house team of environmental specialists who review all environmental
assessments to ensure the safeguards are cost-effective and achieve the proposal’s
environmental goals and Roads and Maritime’s organisational environmental goals.
8.4 Conclusion
The proposal is subject to assessment under part 5 of the EP&A Act. The REF has
examined and taken into account to the fullest extent possible all matters affecting or
likely to affect the environment by reason of the proposed activity.
A number of potential environmental impacts have been avoided or reduced during
the options assessment and the development of the concept design. The proposal as
described in the REF best meets the project objectives, but would still require traffic
management controls to be implemented during construction leading to minor
temporary traffic delays and temporary on-street and off-street access restrictions.
It would also have some minor temporary amenity impacts due to noise emissions,
dust generation and effects on the streetscape character of each work site.
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 468
Review of Environmental Factors