The Hume Coal Project is a proposed underground coal mine in the Southern Highlands of NSW that will supply coal for the production of steel and industrial coal for uses in cement production and power generation. The mining facility is expected to produce around three million tonnes a year of essential raw materials and employ 300-400 people. As with any exploration project like this, Hume Coal is required to adhere to NSW Department of Resource & Energy’s ‘Guideline for community consultation requirements for exploration.’ These guidelines outline the requirements around inclusive and appropriate community consultation and based on these, Hume Coal designed its Community Consultation Program. In order to execute their Community Consultation Program, Hume Coal, enlisted Consultation Manager to be their primary stakeholder management platform. This complex project involves a number of government department stakeholders, each who have specific reporting requirements that Hume Coal must adhere to. These reports should capture engagement activity around how the project may affect things like water quality, noise, dust, land use and heritage listed or indigenous sites of significance. Not only this, it is also a requirement that the project has proven communication with stakeholders in order to gain their mining license.
“CM is invaluable as it captures all the details, which need to be provided for Government engagement reports.” Marianne Husseinbux, Community Relations Coordinator – Hume Coal Project.
Prior to using Consultation Manager, teams of 10-20 people were using Excel spreadsheets and folders saved to their server to capture all of their community engagement data. This process presented challenges around ease of reporting and capturing historical data for Government requirements and internal meetings. With such a diverse range of stakeholders and reporting requirements, it was difficult to extract the required information as it was needed. Annual reporting was time consuming, tedious and a largely manual process.
“Since using CM we can capture detailed information on stakeholder engagement and provide reports quickly and easily for reporting purposes or internal meetings.”
Since adopting Consultation Manager, the Hume Coal project team have been able to consistently capture all of their stakeholder information including emails, meetings, phone calls and lease agreements. Historical data for specific stakeholders, properties or complaints can be quickly identified with a high functioning search feature and stakeholder grouping functions. Annual reporting is no longer a manual and onerous task and team members are able to access instant reports and live dashboards. The information that Consultation Manager is able to provide has supported Hume Coal in executing their Community Consultation Program which ultimately is a critical contributor to the success of this project.
If we didn’t have Consultation Manager, it would be a nightmare.”
The Hume Coal Project has been using Consultation Manager for the past six years and pending the mine approval later this year, they intend to be using the platform for another 15-25 years to come. If you would like to know more about the Hume Coal Project, please visit their website, www.humecoal.com.au. To learn more about how Consultation Manager can assist on your project, please fill out the below contact form and one of our specialists will get in touch!
