Anglo American makes significant progress towards GISTM conformance
04 August, 2023
Anglo American plc (“Anglo American”) has set out its significant progress towards bringing its 12 tailings storage facilities (TSFs) that are currently within the two highest potential consequence categories into conformance with the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM).
The GISTM is the first global standard on tailings facility management and sets a purposely high bar for the mining industry to attain – integrating social, environmental, local economic and technical considerations for every facility, towards the goal of zero harm to people and the environment.
Duncan Wanblad, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “We have made very significant progress towards conformance with the GISTM over the last three years, building upon our already high technical standards. We continue our prudent approach to align with a number of specific GISTM requirements, as well as the social and community aspects that are already encompassed in our comprehensive Social Way management system. We are addressing the few outstanding areas and have set out the work needed to get us there.
“As an industry, we have a clear ethical imperative to do everything possible to ensure that TSFs are managed to the highest standards as we work together to build greater levels of trust with all our stakeholders. GISTM’s role in driving continuous improvement across the industry with full transparency is beyond doubt.”
The full reports on each of the 12 TSFs can be found on Anglo American’s website at https://www.angloamerican.com/esg-policies-and-data/tailings-summary/our-approach-to-gistm
Anglo American played an active role in the multi-stakeholder process of developing the GISTM, which comprises six topic areas, 15 principles and 77 auditable requirements for each facility, and covers standards and practices over the entire lifecycle of a facility.
The few remaining requirements with which Anglo American is in partial conformance largely relate to the necessary sequencing of work and the need to carry out certain additional studies required by the GISTM to further strengthen our understanding of the holistic environmental effects of TSFs over their full lifecycle. Anglo American also continues to enhance the safety and resilience of its facilities through the application of evolving best practice in relation to outcome-based principles in risk assessments.
Anglo American is continuing to work towards conformance in respect of its TSFs that are within the other three lower consequence categories by August 2025, in line with the commitment made by all ICMM member companies.
Anglo American is confident in the integrity of its TSFs, which comply with regulatory requirements in the countries where they are located.