Sustainable development

High altitude wetlands on the land owned by Anglo American at Los Bronces Copper Mine in Chile

During 2008, Anglo American formally launched its internationally recognised Mine Closure Toolbox to assist operations with strategic long-term mine-closure planning.

The Toolbox expands the focus of mine-closure planning from financial provisioning for rehabilitation and physical closure to planning for long-term sustainability through addressing complex socio-economic, physical and bio-physical challenges. The Toolbox was designed by the in-house Technical Services department for use in conjunction with the  Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox, and helps operations comply with the requirements of the Anglo American Environment Way Mine Closure Performance Standard.

Toolbox components

It is important to follow a structured approach to closure planning, and the Toolbox covers three main themes:

• strategic planning
• assessing current status
• scheduling, resource allocation and budgeting to address identified gaps

Strategic planning

The strategic planning element requires an operation to develop a vision of what it wants to achieve post mine closure through engagement with local stakeholders. Ultimately, all strategic plans will involve the mine relinquishing any ‘surrogate government’ role that it might have played during the life of the mine, in order to bring about long-term independence and sustainability in the surrounding community.

Assessing current status

The next step is to assess where the operation is in relation to what it wants to achieve post closure. This involves identifying knowledge gaps in the mine’s current closure plan and defining what level of detail the closure plan should contain relative to the remaining time to closure.

Scheduling, resource allocation and budgeting

Scheduling, resource allocation and budgeting make up the final, detailed planning phase. This encompasses the identification of what technology and resources are required in order to close any gaps, as well as the implementation schedule and financial planning.