PPC Ltd (PPC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on a presentation on PPC's TCFD report, which was released earlier this morning. My name is Kwame Antwi and our MC for today's event. To take us through the presentation is Roland van Wijnen, who is the Group CEO of PPC. He is joined by his team. As usual, we will have a formal presentation. And thereafter, we will open the floor for questions and answers. [Operator Instructions] Without taking too much of your time, let me open the floor and hand over the mic to Roland to take us to through the presentation. Roland, over to you.

Thank you very much, Kwame, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. A pleasure to welcome you to the very first TCFD report that PPC has released. TCFD stands for the Task Force for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, a well-recognized international body that has given guidance to companies like ourselves, how we should look at climate change and the impact that it has in our operations. At PPC, we clearly recognize climate change as well as our contribution to climate change through the CO2 gases that are emitted whilst producing cement. Having said that, we also like to be part of the solution, knowing that concrete is a versatile material that can become carbon-negative in the middle to longer term. Together with me are my 2 colleagues, Kribs Govender and Delon Perumal, respectfully, the Head of Technical for our SAM Botswana business and our PPC International business. Kribs and Delon will support me in explaining to you how we have looked at the TCFD recommendations and what we do to implement a CO2 intensity reduction strategy. If I can have the next slide, Kwame. After my brief introduction, I will hand over to these 2 gentlemen, and after that, I will come back to you for a brief summary, and then we open for Q&A. All of this, we obviously have to see within the broader context of the environment in which we operate. Our strategic priorities remain unchanged, and they are to make sure that we work in an environment that delights our customers, that has engaged employees and it has effective and efficient processes. Because ultimately, we have been entrusted with capital from our shareholders as well as our lenders and we ought to provide a decent financial return on those investments. We do our work within a clear purpose, which is to empower people to experience a better quality of life. We do that through our products, and we do that through our outreach programs in the communities, and we do that through developing our employees and suppliers to give you a few examples. Of course, [ Pol ] is underpinned by strict governance and compliance to our policies and the regulations of the countries in which we operate. Now, you hear a lot about ESG these days. And maybe 5 to 10 years ago, the work sustainability became very popular. For a company like PPC that has been operating now for nearly 130 years, these words, very well known, they were not 100 years ago. But we were already practicing them. We have always been a company that have been able to combine the 3 elements that determine sustainability, which means a financial return, reducing environmental impact and creating an environment for the people to thrive. People, planet, profit. It doesn't really matter in what order. All 3 of them need to be balanced to have a sustainable business. And we will have -- we will continue to deal with the changes that we see in society. Nowadays, climate change has been clearly recognized by the scientists as one of the biggest problems that we are facing to continue having a world in which our children and grandchildren can live with the same or better prosperity than we have had. And we, therefore, will continue to operate in an environmentally and socially acceptable manner. Involving our key stakeholders such as our employees, our customers, our capital providers, suppliers, community and, et cetera. We do that in the background of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. And the ones that are particularly relevant for us in this journey is first, the third objective, good health and well-being. Together with #7, affordable and clean energy; or #8, decent work and economic growth. Industry innovation and infrastructure, goal #9. Sustainable cities and sustainable communities is close to our heart and is United Nations SDG #11. Number 12, responsible consumption and production, climate action and last but not least, life on land. In our future integrated reports, we will continue to give you the feedback on how we progress in the fulfilling of our objectives. If you allow me to give a little bit further background on the next slide, as to the TCFD reporting framework, and why we have done this and what impact does it have? We basically worked on 2 different angles. The first one was to understand the impact of climate change on our existing operations. And we've used 3 different climate scenarios for that. One where the temperature stays within the 1.5 degrees, but also ones that are escalating above these levels. What does that mean for our operations? What do we do with the extensive rainfalls? What do we do with the extensive droughts? How can we mitigate those impacts. The other angle that we looked at is we contribute through the CO2 emissions to the problem. And how can we minimize that on the short term, on the medium term and on the long term. We've announced today that it is our ambition to reach net zero by 2050. But at the same time, you will have seen through our report that we concentrate on 2025 and 2030 because those are periods that we believe we have a reasonable view on what is feasible and what is not yet feasible. What comes beyond 2030 still requires a lot of R&D, investigation and trials. And we will closely follow what is happening in this area with our peers, in order to apply our innovation strategy that is based on being a fast copier. We have worked with a large group of people. You will only have a chance to interact with a few today, but it has literally been dozens across all our operations that have been engaged in this exercise over the last 12 months, as well as our Board, who has extensively put itself aside with this particular report and its implications. The TCFD was established by the Financial Stability Board already back in 2015 to provide this framework to organizations like ours to better understand and effectively deal and develop climate-related strategies. The report that we have shared with you touches on governance, how the line managers, together with specialists, are looking at this and how this escalates to the executive committee and ultimately, the Board. The climate scenarios that I've indicated to you are further unpacked in the report, and you can see how we expect that to play out throughout the world. We look at physical risks, transition risks, but also at opportunities. We know that the change of energy mix in, for example, South Africa will require a number of investments in renewable energies such as wind. And we have a role to play by providing the concrete necessary to build this infrastructure. Ultimately, we do know better now than yesterday that this topic of climate change will have an impact on our financial performance. It will give both opportunities and it will give risk that we ought to manage. On the next slide, you'll see the outline of our targets as we disclosed them already last week as part of our interim results. On the short term, we see feasible a 10% reduction from today's or yesterday's 756 kilograms of CO2 per tonnes of cementitious materials to 680 or less. We have set aside ZAR 664 million over that period in order to achieve that target. The next step, then, will take us to FY 2030. And by that time, we expect to be at 550 kilograms or less, which means 27% reduction compared to the levels where we find ourselves today. We have a very good idea of what we want to do to achieve also the financial year 2030 target. We have not yet disclosed the CapEx that is going in hand in hand with it. The simple reason for that is that there are still many assumptions that have to be validated and verified before we have a reasonable certainty around these numbers. The long-term target is heavily dependent on the regulatory framework and the speed and cost of innovation. And I truly hope that we will see as a world, that we come together, share new ideas to implement this imperative. And that we do not do the same as what happened last Friday when the variant of new -- of COVID was discovered in South Africa, and we got literally punished by various countries in the world. If we want to be successful to defeat COVID or to deal with climate change, this has to be an effort that is done by everyone together. On that note, let me hand over to my colleague, Kribs, who will take you in more detail through our decarbonization strategy. Kribs, over to you, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Roland, and good afternoon to everyone online. Next slide, please. Thank you. Yes. I mean, just to add and build on what Roland has just highlighted, we looked at different scenarios. And based on those scenarios, we looked at the different climate futures that we could expect at our facilities in the continent itself. And taking those things into account under those different scenarios, the impact of that in our business, we foresee that we're going to have higher temperatures coming through, longer spells of dry seasons, frequent rainfall and heavier rain fall, extreme risk of flooding, increasing in wildlife risk, longer, dryer winter. And these things contribute in terms of how we position and how we respond as an organization in terms of these climate risk, and what do we need to do in terms of being more sustainable in our business and in delivering to our commitment to our shareholders and to the communities that we operate in. So we'll move to the next slide, Kwame. So taking those physical risk into account and the transition risk that we mentioned, we looked at it and said, how would this fit into the reporting framework of TCFD. And there are 4 key areas that's sitting in here, in terms of governance, strategy, risk management and the metrics and targets. I'll focus a bit on each one of them. So from a governance point of view, the organization, we are aligned to the framework in accordance with KING IV and there's appropriate structures in place where you have total Board oversight at the end of the day in terms of how we progress in terms of our climate-related strategy and our mitigation in terms of climate impact on the business itself. Our reporting is aligned with our integrated reporting framework and this TCFD report that you see that came out earlier today is a once-off. And in future, it will be part of our integrated reporting suite of documents that would come out. In addition to that, the GRI, the Global Reporting Initiative is where we are aligned in terms of all our data. This data is collected from all our facilities. It's aggregated at a corporate level, and they are assured in terms of our external assurance process that takes place there in terms of the numbers we published. From a strategy perspective, our focus is on -- for now, Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. And part of this focus is to how do we respond to the transition risk, and I'll highlight a bit on that just now, as well as what are the opportunities as a business that we could take from these risks that we see -- that we see coming through. I highlighted a bit as well in terms of the physical risk, the resilience that we need to have. So we have mitigations in place in terms of those different climate scenarios as well as the impact on our business, as was mentioned in the previous slide. We also are looking at and we've started the process of having a foundation in terms of data and human capital that will support all our activities, will guide us in terms of our strategy formulation, will guide us in terms of our execution as well as the measurement thereof. From a risk management perspective, our focus is on the transition risk as well in terms of products and services. How innovation needs to play in terms of developing new products and services in the light of climate-related activities; as well as in terms of human capital, attracting talent and capital and developing talent in terms of positioning for a future that's more sustainable. And then lastly, our system's linked in terms of the data that we have. How do we get that to work on an integrated basis and our systems are aligned in terms of delivering on our strategy. I think the key barriers to decarbonization, as I've mentioned earlier that we're looking at focusing is under policies. So it's key that we understand what policies, how do we influence the policies, both in terms of imported cement as well as in terms of waste. And how do we do waste management, how do we work with governments in terms of shaping policies that we can also look at driving and contributing to our drive to reducing our carbon footprint. And then lastly, from a risk management perspective, we are looking at being a follower in from a technology perspective and how do we adopt these technologies on a quick and an efficient way into our operations and benefit from that in terms of reducing our footprint. As was mentioned in the slide earlier, our targets are based on FY 2020 baseline, and we are looking at reducing that by 10% by 2025 and by 27% by 2030. And then moving beyond that to less than 550 kilogram per cementitious product on the road towards net zero by 2050. Thanks. Next slide, please. And just to highlight here as well from an environmental management perspective, as was mentioned earlier, on the goals, we are aligned in terms of developing our strategy, executing our plans in line with the UN sustainable development goals. And our focus there is in terms of our policy and our policy that will support our activities in driving and reducing our environmental footprint and achieving our targets as was mentioned. Added to that, our integrated sheet policy drives and gives us clear direction in terms of the outcomes, in relation to both environmental management as well as in terms of safety and health of our employees and our contractors. And to build on that, we are conforming to the standards in terms of ISO 14000. We performed internal [Audio Gap] and give assurance in terms of delivery as well as assurance in terms of achieving our targets. And then lastly, in terms of compliance, we are complying in terms of our air quality licenses and authorizations and as well as in terms of country legislations and other specific requirements that do come up from time to time. Thank you. With that, I'll hand over to Delon.

Thank you, Kribs, and good day to all on the online stream. I will be taking you through 4 key focus areas that we've defined as enablers of our decarbonization strategy. And they focus primarily on clinker factor reduction, the use of renewables within our electrical energy mix, the use of alternative fuels to look at coal replacement and then at the plant level, focusing at overall equipment efficiency or what we term in the cement industry as OEEs. Thank you. Next slide. So starting off with clinker factor reduction. Before I go into the details, I think it's useful to give some background on what is clinker factor. Now worldwide, within the cement industry, it's a commonly accepted practice to take your intermediate product and then combine this with what we call an extender or a supplementary cementitious materials or SCM. Which then, when combined, typically end up in your bag of shipment, as you would see it. Now these extenders or SCMs typically display very similar cementitious properties to clinker, but more importantly, it has a lower CO2 footprint. Hence, when combined with clinker, has the overall impact of reducing the CO2 footprint. Now, going into some of the key levers within this strategy. At a very basic level, we're going to look at optimizing our product portfolio. And in this regard, we will look to maximize the extent to which we add these SCMs. Now, we will also do that by ensuring that our cement standards, around which we operate, are not compromised. And our premium product offering across the show range is maintained to our customers. To further allow us to increase or maximize these SCMs, we also have to focus on maintaining a certain clinker quality. And on this aspect, we've deployed some capital, focusing on optimizing what is the recipe used to produce clinker or what we call the raw mix. And this will focus more on ensuring raw material variability is removed and ensuring that clinker, of the optimum quality, is maintained across our operations. The last aspect of this will focus on what we call product enhancers. Now, product enhancers is not new to the industry, it's been around for decades in the form of what we call grinding aids and [indiscernible] enhancers. But over and above these, which will remain as part of our product portfolio, we are also going to be focused on a new age type of product enhancers that will focus more on the extender content and how we can maximize that, while still maintaining these other parameters of strength and maintaining outputs. Now, to the right of the slide, you will see some of these extenders namely, limestone, fly ash, slag and pozzolana, which we currently deploy within our product portfolio. What's highlighted in red is a relatively new material or clinker equivalent that has gained a lot of attention over the past 12 to 24 months, which I will unpack in the next slide. Next slide, please. Thank you. So at a very basic level, limestone calcined clay cement is typically a new type of cement that basically involves taking calcined clay together with some limestone, and then combining this with much lower levels of clinker. Now, it's important to highlight these calcined clays display very similar cementitious properties but have a much lower CO2 footprint, hence, as the overall impact, again, of reducing the overall CO2 footprint profile. Somewhat -- sorry. Before we move on to some of the key aspects in terms of the process of manufacturing these calcined clays, it's simply produced by adding a raw clay into a kiln and then getting out what we call a calcined clay, which is highly reactive. Some key aspects to note about this, in terms of the raw clay deposit itself across our various operations, we do have access to them. Some have been assessed in terms of viability to use and some are underway for assessment. It is produced at a significantly lower temperature profile in comparison to clinker. And as I mentioned earlier, it does have the required cementitious properties that makes it ideal for use in cement production. Now, from a decarbonization perspective, if you look at some of the numbers, calcined clay typically consumes between 30% to 40% less thermal energy. And from a CO2 perspective, that equates to almost 40% to 50% less CO2. Now, the benefits for PPC, as you see on the right are quite wide ranging. But I think the critical thing to highlight here is that, it is currently under a feasibility assessment and it is a key lever in the short term to address our CO2 footprint profile. But we will also do this in collaboration with local authorities and legislations across the jurisdictions. Within the South African context, some of those engagements have already been underway, and we do not foresee any challenges in terms of challenges with the standards or being able to use this within our current product portfolio. Moving on to the next key lever. So the next key lever focuses on the use of renewable energy. Now, and in particular, solar. Now, PPC is fortunate that within the areas in which it operates, it's blessed with high levels of solar irradiation. This, combined with the fact that the cost to implement solar has come down significantly over the past few years has enabled PPC to engage with various service providers on entering into power purchase type agreements. Some of these projects involves looking at putting embedded solar plant at our various operations to rooftop solar as well as looking at the feasibility of power wheeling at some of our SA operations. Within our Zimbabwe operation, we're also looking at putting in a solar plant at our clinker manufacturing line together with the use of batteries. And this will enable us to maintain our operations for between 2 to 4 hours when there are greater outages. So this is quite a unique solution, which we are -- which we will kick off within the next 2 months or so. Moving on to the next one. Now, the use of alternative fuels to replace coal is the next key enabler. Within the PPC context, it's still relatively inflating in status. That being said, we have embarked on this journey of alternative fuels. Within our Western Cape operations, we currently are processing all tires at what we call a thermal substitution rate of between 5% to 7%. And in the short to medium term, we look at increasing that up to 20%. And whilst we continue that, there are currently studies underway to look at the use of these tires at our other mega plants within South Africa. On the content itself, biomass is playing a key role as part of our AFR strategy. In our Rwanda operations, we are using palm kernels and rice husks, together with some peat and currently, we're sitting at substitution rates of between 8% to 12%, with again, looking at getting this up to the 20% level. Now, whilst we continue on this journey of AFRs, we are also going to investigate the use of refuse derived fuels. There are currently feasibility studies underway, but I think the important thing to highlight here, that refuse derived fuels in itself is a highly capital-intensive initiatives and it also requires strong collaborations with government, communities and local authorities to implement. It is still early stages yet, but it's something that we will play a key role into the future to take our dependency of coal usage. Moving on to the final slide and the final enabler. So the last area of focus is typically at the plant level and what we call the overall equipment efficiency. And simply, this can be viewed as to maintain an optimal OEE at our plant, we want to run it for as long as practically possible at the correct output. And in doing so, we will maximize the energy input that we've put into these operations. This has the impact of running at an optimal CO2 footprint. In terms of the key interventions, we will have a push to ensure that our operating units run at their design outputs or even their best demonstrated practices, if not, better. There will be a focus on continuous improvements, and this will be done by rigorous plant audits to identify energy savings opportunities. In terms of maintaining the kilns and ensuring good availability and reliability, we will leverage our asset care and management systems to ensure our plant and preventive maintenance is adequately implemented across our operations. And we will do this to ensure that these stop-starts, which is very detrimental to energy usage, will be reduced, if not eliminated, going into the future. The last -- sorry, I've lost the slide. Sorry, you skipped the slide. Okay. The last aspect of this is on digitalization. Now, digitalization is a growing trend, not only in cement, but across various industries. And it's no different for PPC in terms of embracing this for the future. We are going to focus on the use of data and data management and data analytics, not only to improve our manufacturing processes, but also our business processes. It will put us in good stead in terms of ensuring credible data, credible reporting and also from an audit point of view going forward. Now, just in terms of some of the key projects that will drive some of these interventions. Within our Rwanda operation, we are heavily focused on getting the production capacity up to its design output, if not better. We're also looking to deploy more efficient technology, more at a plant level in terms of fields. And also, in terms of deploying a newer clinker cooler technology. Now, this, specifically, will have the impact of assisting with reliability, but also have a positive impact on thermal energy consumption. The last one that you see there, which is quite an exciting one. First, the use of artificial intelligence to drive sustainable performance. And we are going to look at deploying an AI system that will assist in running one of our kiln lines within Zimbabwe. And we will do this to ensure the KPIs can be met consistently and at the right thermal efficiency. We will -- this will enable this operation to run in what one would call an autopilot mode. But important to highlight, we will not be moving away from the operator itself. In fact, we will use this process to leverage the skills and upskill these operators as we move forward. So in a nutshell, those are the key enablers, and I hand over to Roland. Sorry, Roland, you're on mute.

Thank you for that, Delon. And thanks for the presentation, Kribs. Thank you, Delon. I hope to all the listeners, this has given you an insight in how we plan to achieve the reduction of carbon intensity of our products. Allow me to summarize. But before I do that, in addition to Delon and Kribs, there have been many people involved throughout our business. And I would like to thank them because they've worked hard on this topic, whilst we were in the middle of a major turnaround at the same time. Later on in the Q&A, there are 2 more colleagues that will be joining us. [ Eli Selman ] , who is the lead specialist, quality, health, safety and environment for PPC International, as well as [ Ronel Arcada ] , who is heading up our project management office. Both of them have been instrumental in getting this report, and I would like to thank them for that. In summary, as an industry leader in Southern Africa, PPC have embarked on a continuation and an acceleration of a journey that has been going on already for a while. Because without having been explicit about it, the investments that we have made as a group over the years have, of course, contributed already to a reduction. We have chosen to use our financial year '20, which is the calendar year largely 2019 as our base year because we didn't want to show reductions benefiting from this past investment. We wanted to start now, as ultimately the most important for us is to come to net zero rather than to show you a big percentage reduction. I hope you have been able to get an insight in how we plan to achieve this by 2025, and later on by 2030, respectively. We will continue to look at climate risk as part of our annual risk programs, and we make mitigation measures where possible. For example, we know now that we have to build sheds in certain parts of our operations to protect our materials from the heavy rain that we can expect. The TCFD reporting, going forward, will be integrated in our annual report. We believe that, that way we inform all our stakeholders at one and the same time of all aspects that drive the sustainability of our business. We haven't spoken much about the opportunities for new revenues besides the fact that I mentioned that the energy transition in South Africa will require a huge amount of concrete. But there will be other opportunities coming out of building materials that we might not yet have a full sight of. And as PPC, we would like to be and will be at the forefront of building materials that come with less carbon intensity than the ones we know today. We will, of course, use our regional footprint and the knowledge that we have across the various jurisdictions to transfer ideas from one part of the group to the other. And last but not least, we will continue to engage with the key stakeholders. Kribs mentioned in his presentation the importance to put a proper waste regulation framework in place that enables companies like ourselves to utilize the waste in a better way than what is currently happening with it, which is largely lengthening. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we come to the end of the presentation, and we'll open the floor for the questions. Kwame, back to you, please.

Thank you, Roland and team for a very comprehensive presentation. Once again, we thank everybody for joining us. Now we've opened the floor for question and answers. I'm going to start by asking if there are any questions on the webcast.

Thank you, Kwame. We do have 2 questions on the webcast. The first question comes from Daniel Frank of RMB, which has actually said, "Thank you for an insightful presentation. I just wanted to inquire around the ZAR 664 million in CapEx. Will debt and equity be leveraged to fund this CapEx?"

Thanks for the question, Daniel. The ZAR 664 million CapEx is, to some extent, integrated in our normal CapEx plans going forward. We guided the market last week that we spent annually approximately ZAR 500 million to ZAR 550 million on our capital programs. This ZAR 664 million is over a period of 3 years. Part of it is integrated in the ZAR 500 million to ZAR 550 million and a part of it, approximately ZAR 300 million over 2 years will come on top. Given the fact that we are in a much better financial position as we were prior, we expect that we can finance this out of our normal cash flows. We are, at the same time, engaged with our prime lenders, your company involved, to identify ways how we can use some of the incentives around green funding for some of these projects. I hope that answers your question, Daniel.

Thank you, Roland. The next question or series of questions comes from Lisa Stain of [ 1024 ]. She has asked how many tonnes and types of coal does PPC consume? And what do you expect it to reduce to in the short, medium and long term? The second question, does all PPC's coal come from the domestic market? Does the company have any concern for the impact of its reduced dependency on coal and what this will mean for coal mining communities? What will PPC do to assist the drastic transition for the coal industry and communities dependent on it?

Thank you very much, Lisa. We're going to work that question backwards. I'm going to ask in a second, my colleagues, Kribs and Delon to talk about the amount of coal. If they know it, I don't know it by heart to be honest. Certainly, they can speak about where it comes from and what the reduction targets are in terms of alternate fuels. The last aspect of your question is about just transition. And that is a topic that is extremely important, especially in the context of the countries where we operate. As PPC, we have joined NBI in the just transition initiative, where we are working alongside with a number of large companies such as Eskom, such as [ Sasol ] in order to come up with a just transition plan. Because we know that if we were to switch away from coal as one of the main users, we do create problems in the communities that are currently dependent on coal mining. And I think this is one of the reasons why South Africa and also other countries in Africa need to be very consumed in the terms of the commitments they make and the speed with which they make them. On an overall scale, though, our coal consumption in the bigger scale is relatively small, as you probably already know. Let's start in South Africa and then we work our way north. Kribs, would we like to give some insight on how much coal we currently use and where it comes from and what we'd like to reduce?

Sure. Yes, I don't have the exact number in terms of our usage of coal, but we do source all our coals from domestic markets. And we have long-term agreements with those coal mines in terms of our supply. Reducing the coal, it will be in the range of, as Delon mentioned, total substitution rate of bringing in alternate fuel. So that's the 20% to 30% that he's mentioned. So the coal consumption will come down around that percentage. Delon?

Yes. So in the Rwanda market, we do use a lot of export coals from Tanzania together with peat and some [indiscernible] like I mentioned. And again, in a similar vein, we're currently sitting at 8%, 12% AFR. So we look -- that's an offset of, give or take, 5,000 tonnes of coal. So moving up to the 20% substitution rate in the short term. Replace about 10,000 tonnes of coal roughly.

Thanks, Delon and Kribs. And Ellie, with the risk of putting your labor at the spot here. And do you know whether the amount of coal usage is disclosed in our integrated annual report?

Roland, in previous sessions, we did have the coal figures displayed there. But we can look into it and give the exact figures.

Yes. Thanks, Ellie. Perfect. So Lisa, please, outside of the session, happy to provide you more details.

Thank you to the team for answering those questions. The next question comes from Arshad Amit from [ Aircom ]. Do you have a short-term ESG strategy to assist the communities you operate within?

The short answer, [ Isha ] , is yes, we do. Both as part of the social neighbor plants that we have mandatory in South Africa, but more importantly, under our broader corporate social investments. And I'll ask Kribs and Delon to give a few insights in what we do with the communities and let's start in the north, this time. Delon, let's go for Rwanda first.

Okay. If you don't mind, can I ask Ellie to offer some insight in terms of stakeholder engagement?

100% she knows...

So Ellie?

There are several projects that are running in the communities at the moment. In Rwanda, specifically, what I should highlight, we have a 0 waste strategy. Whereby we do not dispose any waste to the landfill side. So everything that we generate, we actually co-process in the kiln. So we have a community of cooperative that is working with that waste and making sure that is packaged the right way for it to be co-processed. In another instance, we also have recently put up solar panels in -- at the houses in Rwanda. So we use the community to make sure that the maintenance of those solar panels are intact. In Zimbabwe, we do have some initiatives regarding gardening and subsistence farming that I imagine. At the moment, I think in the GRC -- okay, couple with that as well, we have got a cooperative, whereby community members do the ceiling projects for PPC employees. And also, we're planning to expand that [ protective ]. I got -- I lost it, PPE to the rest of the communities or the rest of the mines around our communities. The same applies for DRC, although not part of the scope entirely, but we do have the same saving project as well, whereby our PPE is actually designed and set by our communities and sold to PPC. So in a nutshell, that is what has been happening.

Thanks, Ellie. Kribs, you want to add something to South Africa? I know a lot of the areas are very similar. But if you see 1 or 2 comments you want to make, go for it.

Yes. Thanks, Roland. I think we also develop small, medium and micro enterprises. We do train people in that sector in terms of bricklaying, clustering. So those are the things that contribute and starts to create more sustainable jobs for them as well, as just to -- from our local communities, smaller type contracts, as Ellie mentioned, we do U.S. debt from a local perspective.

Thanks, Kribs. And just to return back to the question that Lisa asked, we are sometimes fast in getting answers. Thanks to Kevin Odendaal, our Head of Supply Chain. He just told me that we're using about 500,000 tonnes of coal across our operations in South Africa and Botswana. The international number, we can take it out easily as well if you want the list. Back to you all, Louise.

Louise, can we check the conference call, if we've got any questions on the call?

There are no questions on the line, sir.

Okay. Then let's go back to the webcast. Any more questions, Louise?

Thank you, Kwame. There is a question from David [ Celbridge ] , of 91. Thank you for the presentations. Scope 1 emissions are your most material and require early focus. Please comment on your Scope 3 emissions and what action you are planning, including timing.

Yes. Thanks a lot, David. You're absolutely right. So our Scope 1 emissions are, by far, the most important. Scope 1 and Scope 2, in total, is what we control directly. Scope 3 is what is sitting in our supply chain. Now, there a number of challenges around that. The first challenge is to actually get the footprint out of our supply chain. That is not always easy. And secondly, we would, of course, expect that a number of the larger companies in that supply chain are doing the same thing as what we are doing because what is Scope 3 for us is Scope 1 and 2 for them. But also very important to bear in mind, if we speak about enterprise development, and transformation. In our supply chain, we have a lot of other priorities that we are dealing with as well because we do, at the same time, try to stimulate that. So I'm not trying to sort of skirt away from the responsibility, but we do believe that keep us accountable for Scope 1 and Scope 2. And where we see, first of all, that we can get actually our heads around the total footprint that we have in Scope 3, we will then start to tackle that as well. As usual, you'll eat the elephant bit by bit.

Thank you, Roland. There don't appear to be any more questions. I think we can maybe just give the participants on the line, just a few more minutes on the webcast if there are any questions that you'd like to talk in the Q&A tab. Perhaps we can go back to the conference call line. I don't know if there are any questions on that side.

No, there are no questions on the lines. Thank you.

We seem to have no further questions.

Thank you very much, Louise. Thank you to the audience. Back to you, Kwame.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you, Team PPC. And also, thank you for all the listeners on the -- both the conference call and the webcast. As you all agree, it was quite an informative presentation. If you have any more questions that you feel were not properly addressed or if you come up with questions later on, kindly reach out on the PPC website via the Investor Relations tab, and we will make sure that we respond as appropriately as quickly as possible. Once again, everybody, thank you, and enjoy the rest of your day. Bye.