Henry Fernandez
Innovations Director

Background:
Under legislation passed in October 2007, Bluescope Steel has a requirement to report on both energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with effect from 1^st July 2008. The existing systems required significant amounts of manual intervention in order to be able to produced timely and verifiable data.

Why This is Important
With increasing community and legislative obligations putting pressure on recording, management and reporting IT systems, environmental sustainability has become an imperative for all businesses. The Australian Government is currently developing the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System, which will be a framework for the mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and energy production and consumption by Australian corporations.  It is very important for Bluescope Steel to provide accurate and reliable data to this reporting system, as it will underpin the future Australian Emissions Trading Scheme as well as impart information to the public sphere.

PLAUT Provides the Solution
Using SAP's Business Intelligence (SAP BI) platform, PLAUT had developed a solution based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and has joined with Bluescope to pilot it at the Port Kembla Steelworks site. The idea being to jump start the solution development by using PLAUT's Sustainability reporting product.

Scope
The reporting captures all energy and greenhouse emissions sources used by the business.  The Department of Energy and the Climate Change National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System regulations provided the basis for the report.  There are three scopes within this regulation:

• Scope One: Direct energy sources and greenhouse gas emissions - consumption of energy and greenhouse gases derived from sources within the plant boundary. (e.g. Coal, PET Coke, Coal Spray Oil, PCI Coal, COG, BFG, Natural Gas, Limestone, Dolomite)
• Scope Two:  Indirect energy and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the consumption of electricity, heat or steam
• Scope Three: Other indirect energy and greenhouse gas emissions - that is, emissions resulting from the consumption of services which have "embodied energy." 

Based on the above scope definitions, the report totalizes energy consumption / production and greenhouse gas emissions. Using the SAP cost object data, it gives users the ability to view emissions and energy consumption for individual cost centres or for Departmental totals.  Energy and GHG intensity figures, based on the activity output of the cost centre or Department, are also provided.

What next?

• Phase One of the project is complete and will see the introduction of Scope 1 reporting for all Departments at Port Kembla Steelworks from July 2008
• Phase Two will focus on implementing enhanced reporting of Scope 2 and 3 as well as providing a Port Kembla Steelworks site boundary reporting
• Rollouts to other business units are planned for later in 2008

For more information on Sustainability Reporting, contact Henry Fernandez on henry.fernandez@plaut.com.au