In this second story about our six key sustainability commitments, we look at how we're working to achieve Zero Harm and provide water security to communities.
Zero Harm
Continuously driving our safety and health strategy, we have trained 5,175 people in South Africa through the Tripartite Health and Safety Initiative and issued mandatory technical standards for managing dust and noise.
Approximately 100,000 employees and contractors have been tested for HIV/AIDS each year since 2010, and more than 5,000 HIV-infected employees have been treated in southern Africa. This approach is yielding results: we have achieved a 54% reduction in lives lost in the past five years and there were 14% fewer occupational disease cases in 2012 compared with 2011. Tuberculosis rates in South African operations are decreasing and are below the national and industry average.
Water security
Through our partnerships with non-governmental agencies, our 10-year water strategy is focused on four areas: making our operations water-independent, investing in water treatment and relevant technology innovation, building water infrastructure for mutual benefit and partnering with other stakeholders.
The introduction of WETT (Water Efficiency Target Tool) has made these commitments clear and helped every part of our business identify their own water-saving projects.
So far, 60 of these have achieved a 6.8% saving against projected water usage, 72% of operational water requirements have been met by recycling or re-using water, and four of our sites now recycle more than 90% of their water.
Read part one in this three part series.
