Anglo American and the seven steps to sustainability
Anglo American as a business has historically been a leader in encouraging sustainable mining practices. To discover more about how the company puts ide...
Anglo American as a business has historically been a leader in encouraging sustainable mining practices. To discover more about how the company puts ide...
Anglo American as a business has historically been a leader in encouraging sustainable mining practices. To discover more about how the company puts ideas into practice, we spoke with Anglo American, to see how the business is continuing to encourage sustainability in a difficult pricing environment. From shrinking its environmental footprint to encouraging socio-economic development in developing communities, the business is striving to deliver sustainability through each of its seven pillars of value:
1.Safety and health: According to Rene Aguilar, group head of safety, Anglo American “has a zero harm vision.” Through stringent workforce safety and health programmes, it aims to make safety a way of life, inside and outside of the workplace.
2.Environment: Anglo American has reiterated its commitment to manage the environment in such a way that host communities benefit from the mining activities today and in the future.
3.Socio-political: The heart of the brand is “real mining, real people, real difference”, so it’s no surprise that the business endeavours to make a lasting positive contribution to the communities that house and support its operations.
4.People: In chief executive Mark Cutifani’s words, “people are the business.” The miner is looking to resource its organisation with an engaged and productive workforce and empowers leadership to deliver results and improve business resilience.
5.Production: In a difficult pricing environment, the business is constantly looking to innovate in order to make mining safer and more efficient, and to extract its metal reserves in a sustainable way that creates value.
6.Cost: The roll-out of Anglo American’s Operating Model to six of its operations in 2015 had a positive impact in many areas of its value chain, and continues to make Anglo American a more productive business. While the Operating Model is an essential enabler for delivering production targets, and ultimately for reducing its operating costs, at its heart is the discipline of planned work, which has also been proven across many industries to deliver substantial benefits in safety and environmental performance.
7.Financial: In the midst of unprecedented organisational changes, the company is prioritising long-term sustainable returns to shareholders. Over the next 12-24 months, Anglo American will adjust its focus to concentrate on a much-reduced portfolio of 16 core operating assets that produce diamonds, platinum group metals and copper. These mid- to late-cycle metals and minerals will afford the Group greater exposure to fast-growing consumer sectors, such as ‘next wave’ clean-energy and hardware technologies. By focusing on De Beers, Platinum and Copper, Anglo American’s core portfolio will comprise highly competitive assets that are positioned to deliver significant upside potential.
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