World Water Week 2021: Building Resilience Faster

Technology

In Anglo American, 75% of our assets are located in water-constrained areas, so we must reduce our dependence on water and associated tailings facilities, something that we are addressing via the Water stretch goals under the Healthy Environment pillar of our Sustainable Mining Plan.

Our industry will always need water, but we can get closer to full recovery recycling. Through integrated and complementary FutureSmart Mining^TM technologies such as coarse particle recovery and hydraulic dry stacking, we are reducing the amount of freshwater we are using, moving to closed loop and ultimately dry-processing in our operations, which will eliminate the need for wet tailings and instead create stable, dry, economically viable land.

People

South Africa is approaching physical water scarcity by 2025 and its socio-economic development has been directly hampered by the recent drought. Based on current usage trends, the country is expected to face a water deficit of 17% by 2030 and this shortage will only be worsened by climate change.

In the Limpopo region, our Platinum business is aiming to address some of the challenges in what is a water-stressed area. The team are working with local stakeholders, the Mapela Task Team, and the Mapela Traditional Community, as well as the Hall Core Water Mapela to sustainably increase water supply in the area.

Before the pandemic, the Mapela project supplied water to 85,000 people in total in 42 villages. During the country's first lockdown, as part of WeCare and the Community Response Programme, the project was extended to a number of villages in Mogalakwena: Ga-Machikiri; Mokaba; Sandsloot Ga-Masenya; Mabusela; Malepetleke and Sekgoboko.

Residents in these communities will receive 50 litres of clean water per day for the duration of the pandemic.

In Chile, where most of the country has been affected by severe drought for the last decade, we are acutely aware of the very real challenges faced when water is in scarce supply.

In rural areas of the country, almost two million people are reliant on the Rural Drinking Water Systems, most of which do not have the necessary infrastructure or technology to efficiently manage the supply.

The team of Anglo American’s Rural Water Programme has been working to develop innovative solutions, so they can ensure a sustainable water supply for the communities around our sites in Chile. They have been working with communities near our Los Bronces and El Soldado operations to boost rural potable water supply wells with equipment and technology.

The numbers

By 2025, two-thirds of the world's population may face water shortages.
The freshwater withdrawal reduction from 2015 to 2020 was 10%, against the 2020 Sustainable Mining Plan milestone of 20%. However, we have exceeded our milestone for recycling and re-use: 80% against the milestone of 75%.
Our 2030 Sustainable Mining Plan target is to reduce the abstraction of freshwater in water-scare regions by 50%.