Delivering sustainable outcomes in high-risk environments: The role of reliability, maintenance, and lifecycle planning

Around the world there is mounting pressure for change in the mining sector, from the Critical Raw Materials Act in the European Union (EU) to the Climate-Smart Mining Initiative by the World Bank. Governing bodies are implementing policies to encourage sustainable change in the industry.

Delivering sustainable outcomes in complex, high-risk environments is one of the industry’s most pressing challenges. Ensuring safety, reliability, and meeting regulatory compliance standards are essential for staying ahead in mining – but so is sustainability. As technology advances and decarbonisation strategies are being put in place, many mining companies continue to struggle to implement sustainable practices in production.

Sim Sharphouse, Operations Manager at mechanical and electrical engineering firm Salko UK, discusses how implementing small actionable steps consistently over a period of time is the key to making tangible long term difference and the importance of reliability, maintenance and lifecycle planning in reducing mining's environmental impact.

High-risk environments and operational complexity

Mining is one of the most hazardous industries in the world; it faces a higher prevalence of workplace harm than the global average and in many cases takes place in unforgiving environments.

Tailings dam failures are one of the most serious environmental risks as it can release tonnes of contaminated waste into the environment. The Bramadinho dam disaster that happened in Brazil in 2019 is an example of this. As a result of the accident over 12 million m³ of toxic mud was released into local forests, rivers, and farmland.

The environment plays a big role in operation efficiency and outcomes as it can impact the integrity of equipment, logistics, energy efficiency, emergency protocols and transportation.

Mines can also be designed in ways that benefit the environments they operate in. An example of this is Woodsmith Mine in North York Moors National Park, England which has been designed to extract POLY4, a naturally occurring, low-carbon polyhalite fertiliser, that supports sustainable agriculture.

At the heart of the project is the construction of two deep mine shafts, plunging over 1600 m. This underground-first approach represents more than a technical solution, it is becoming a blueprint for sustainable mining worldwide. By reducing surface disturbance, it helps safeguard protected landscapes and avoids large-scale deforestation and habitat loss.

Benefits of lifecycle planning

Lifecycle planning is one of the most effective ways to reduce environmental impact in mining operations. By considering the full lifecycle of an asset, from procurement and operation to decommissioning, operators can make more informed decisions about capital investment, maintenance intensity, and replacement timing.

Implementing systems and investing in efficient machinery from the very start can shape sustainable outcomes. Early stage decisions regarding system specification, layout, and integration can reduce energy outcomes and carbon emissions. This can be done by selecting advanced HVAC systems, optimising electrical distribution by using energy-efficient plant hire, and integrating smart controls to create a performance led approach to respond swiftly to the demands of manufacturing.

At Salko UK, we offer our customers electrical plant hire through our Balkholme depot. Our solutions deliver improved reliability, enhanced safety, and greater energy efficiency – all while significantly reducing environmental impact. Each item undergoes rigorous in-house testing and quality checks, ensuring customers receive equipment they can depend on in high-pressure, technical environments.

Reliability in ensuring sustainability

Reliability engineering – focusing on ensuring systems, products, and processes function as intended – is important in ensuring good environmental performance.

In mining, the process ensures equipment reliability and integrity with the goal of minimising failures, improving maintenance effectiveness, shortening repair times, and meeting organisation expectations. This in turn reduces waste, energy consumption, and the high emissions that come with repair and maintenance cycles.

Reliability programmes help maintenance teams prioritise and monitor the assets that create the greatest operational risk. Many operators in the industry start in environments where reactive maintenance is the norm, where teams spend a lot of their time responding to equipment breakdowns and urgent repairs. In the long term, this approach creates unstable workloads, unpredictable downtime, and increasing maintenance costs. This step addresses issues before they happen by using analysis and operational data to identify which failures create the greatest risk to production and safety. This allows on site teams to prioritise inspections, constant monitoring, and corrective actions before failures escalate.

Through its comprehensive services and integration of high precision testing equipment, Salko UK ensures that engineering systems meet rigorous standards for performance, safety, and efficiency.

Maintenance strategy and environmental impact

Maintenance plays an important role in an operation’s environmental impact but it is often not taken into consideration or underestimated when considering sustainability.

Through sustainable maintenance, managing systems and infrastructure can be done in a way that reduces environmental impact, whilst also ensuring systems remain reliable and efficient over a long period of time.

To achieve sustainable maintenance, it is important to assess the environmental impact of maintenance activities that is needed to extend product life cycles. This ensures efficiency in turn increased longevity, greater compliance and reduced carbon footprint.

Regularly maintained equipment uses less energy unlike unkempt machinery, which can release harmful substances to the environment. This approach reduces environmental impact while also enhancing the health and safety of your employees and customers.

Ultimately, delivering sustainable outcomes in mining is not only reliant on technological innovation. It also requires decision makers and engineers to utilise technology to make better choices for their operation, safety, and the environments they operate in.

By combining these principals, the sector can meet the sustainability demands of today's world.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/special-reports/30062026/delivering-sustainable-outcomes-in-high-risk-environments-the-role-of-reliability-maintenance-and-lifecycle-planning/