[Ferro-alloys.com]:Anglo American plc (“Anglo American”) is today presenting its twice yearly sustainability performance update, including specific progress on emissions reduction, water stewardship and building a safe and inclusive culture.

Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “A sustainable business is one that has an enduring purpose in society and that considers in all its decision-making the many different forms of value that it can deliver for all stakeholders. Much of what we are driving for, particularly in terms of our energy and water ambitions, will be achieved through the technologies we are deploying as part of our FutureSmart Mining™ programme. These technologies are transforming the very nature of mining – how we source, mine, process, move and market our products – both our physical and social footprints.?

Energy – progressing towards carbon neutral operations

“We are targeting carbon neutrality across our operations by 2040 and we are making good progress. In March we announced our partnership with EDF Renewables to work together to develop a regional renewable energy ecosystem in South Africa, aimed at addressing our operational footprint. This agreement is a further major step towards addressing our on-site energy requirements – the largest source of our operational emissions – and builds on the agreements already secured for 100% renewable electricity supply for all our operations in South America by 2023.

“We are also moving towards a solution for the largest portion of our Scope 1 emissions, being the diesel used in our haul truck fleet, and we expect to see our proof of concept hydrogen fuel cell truck in action in the coming weeks. Step by step, we are changing the very nature of mining and how our stakeholders experience our business – while supporting what must be a just energy transition.

Water – responsible stewardship

“Water is fundamental for our operations and the communities around us. We embrace our role as water stewards and, as our approach continues to evolve, we incorporate learnings and develop or implement new technologies.

“Our Sustainable Mining Plan sets out very ambitious targets for reducing our water footprint, including to reduce fresh water usage by 50% by 2030 and an intermediate target of 20% by the year 2020, which we met. Today, we are outlining our pathway for the achievement of the ambitious 50% target, including a number of defined initiatives such as an integrated water supply project for Los Bronces in Chile. A win-win for us and our host community, the project involves the replacement of most of our current fresh water needs with treated municipal wastewater in a unique swap agreement that delivers fresh water to the local community while we instead use water not suitable for human consumption.

“In addition, we set a target of achieving 75% water efficiency (reuse and recycle) in 2020. In that year we recorded an efficiency of 81% and last year we reached 83%. We now intend to extend this metric to 2030 and by the end of this year we intend to set out that new target including a pathway, similar to the one for fresh water.

“We are also committed to ensuring that the water assets we manage and the savings we achieve by reducing our water footprint translate into making additional water resources available in ways that are socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial. This is what we refer to as Water Stewardship. We continue to work on water-related initiatives to improve the lives of communities local to our operations, including supplying water and building dams and supporting infrastructure. In South Africa and South America in particular, we support a variety of water stewardship initiatives, ranging from water supply projects with our partners and providing drinking water to our communities, to infrastructure projects with local government.”

Living with Dignity - building a safe and inclusive culture

“Building a safe and inclusive culture has been a focus for us for a number of years. We have zero tolerance for any form of bullying, harassment or victimisation and we know there is no room for complacency. This is constant work for any company or society, and we are committed to listening to our people and other stakeholders that are close to our business every day.

“We have long understood the role of our business in society, and we believe our responsibility extends beyond our own mine gates. We launched our Living with Dignity programme in 2019, founded on the belief that everyone has the right to dignity – in our homes, schools, at work and everywhere in between. Through this programme, Anglo American is working collaboratively with our partners in government and civil society to build sustainable partnerships aimed at providing direct employee and community support to combat gender-based and domestic violence. 

“We continue to build on this important work and just last month we launched our new Living with Dignity Hub in South Africa that brings together our policies and its mandates to provide ongoing and committed support to our employees, contractors and their families. The hub handles all formal complaints of sexual harassment and gender-based violence (SHGBV) and bullying, harassment and victimisation (BHV) across our South African footprint and is overseen by an independent Ambassador to ensure we stand by our policies and remain committed to amplifying our efforts.”

Mr Cutifani concluded: “Anglo American’s Purpose of re-imagining mining to improve people’s lives guides what we do across the board in considering the needs and expectations of our employees, shareholders and diversity of stakeholders. We are making good progress towards our Sustainable Mining  Plan goals but we also recognise that the world moves on, as do society’s expectations of us. After four years, we are refreshing our Sustainable Mining Plan, setting new and stretching targets which will continue to challenge us to lead and innovate.”

Today’s Sustainability Performance presentation will be available on the Anglo American website www.angloamerican.com at 9am UK time, with the presentation itself starting at 9.30am UK time. A full recording will be available following the presentation at: www.angloamerican.com/investors/investor-presentations.

• [Editor:Alakay]