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Anglo American leads the way on IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining

30 September, 2019

Anglo American announces that its Unki platinum mine in Zimbabwe is the first to publicly commit to be independently audited against the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s (IRMA) ‘Standard for Responsible Mining’.

IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining has been developed over ten years through a public consultation process with more than 100 different individuals and organisations, including mining companies, customers and the ultimate downstream users of mined products, NGOs, labour unions, and communities.

An initial self-assessment was completed by Unki ahead of the independent on-site audit and the operation performed well against the 26 areas covered by the Standard for Responsible Mining, including working conditions, human rights, community and stakeholder engagement, environmental impact, and planning and financing reclamation and closure.

Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, said: “We have a longstanding commitment as a leader in responsible mining, with numerous examples of our progressive business decisions across many decades. We are pleased that Unki will be the first mine in the world to publicly commit to a third party audit to determine its performance against IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining. As our customers and end consumers who rely on our metals and minerals rightly expect the highest standards of ethical production, we will be putting all our managed mines through such rigorous certification processes by 2025.”

Aimee Boulanger, Executive Director of IRMA commented: “While IRMA is a voluntary certification system meant to complement strong laws and government oversight, it is also the world’s first and only global definition of what constitutes leading practices in social and environmental responsibility for large-scale mining operations developed through consultation with a range of stakeholders. It is the product of ten years of collaboration between our stakeholders that seeks to emulate for mining what has been done with certification programmes in fair-trade agriculture, responsible forestry and sustainable fisheries, as examples.

“We are extremely pleased to see Anglo American’s Unki mine take the lead and begin the third-party certification process. We hope that this paves the way for others across the industry to make a similar commitment.”

Chris Griffith, CEO of Anglo American Platinum, said: “The IRMA self-assessment tool has provided us with a valuable opportunity to measure our performance at Unki mine against international best practice on a wide range of environmental and societal factors. We are immensely proud of the work the team has been doing at Unki on responsible and sustainable mining, and we look forward to continue leading the way for our other mining operations.”

Unki is the first of many Anglo American operations to be measured against the IRMA standard, in line with the commitment in our Sustainable Mining Plan to have all of our operations assessed against credible responsible mining standards by 2025.

Other Anglo American operations currently completing the IRMA self-assessment stage include the Barro Alto nickel operation in Brazil and the Amandelbult PGM operation in South Africa.

Unki has not yet been independently assessed against the standard nor achieved a level of recognition at the time of this announcement.

For further information, please contact:

Media Investors
UK UK
James Wyatt-Tilby Paul Galloway
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8759 Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8718
Marcelo Esquivel Robert Greenberg
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8891 Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 2124
Katie Ryall Emma Waterworth
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0) 207 968 8935 Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8574
South Africa  
Pranill Ramchander  
Email: [email protected]  
Tel: +27 (0)11 638 2592  
Sibusiso Tshabalala  
Email: [email protected]  
Tel: +27 (0)11 638 2175  

Notes to editors:

Anglo American is a leading global mining company and our products are the essential ingredients in almost every aspect of modern life. Our portfolio of world-class competitive mining operations and undeveloped resources provides the metals and minerals that enable a cleaner, more electrified world and that meet the fast growing consumer-driven demands of the world’s developed and maturing economies. With our people at the heart of our business, we use innovative practices and the latest technologies to discover new resources and mine, process, move and market our products to our customers around the world – safely, responsibly and sustainably.

As a responsible miner – of copper, platinum group metals, iron ore, coal and nickel – we are the custodians of what are precious natural resources. We work together with our business partners and diverse stakeholders to unlock the sustainable value that those resources represent for our shareholders, the communities and countries in which we operate, and for society as a whole. Anglo American is re-imagining mining to improve people’s lives.

www.angloamerican.com

About IRMA

The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance is a globally focused non-profit organization with a mission to protect people and the environment directly affected by mining. They do this by creating financial value for mines independently verified to achieve best practices and share this value and greater confidence with the businesses that purchase material from these mines.

IRMA leadership is made up of NGOs, labour unions, mining-affected communities, mining companies, and companies who purchase mined materials.

IRMA is the only organization with a global standard that covers all mined materials (except energy fuels), coming from all sizes of industrial mines all over the world, describing best-practices as well as entry level achievement and recognizing continuing improvement from any starting point, and which verifies achievement using independent auditors at the site of the mine.

IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining was developed through a public consultation process incorporating 1,400 comments from more than 100 different individuals and organizations.

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