Anglo American's Effective Partnerships are Essential for Achieving Sustainable Change

LONDON, March 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Anglo American published its 14th annual Sustainable Development Report today, detailing the global diversified mining company's sustainability performance for 2014. The focus of this year's report is effective partnerships and collaboration with key stakeholders, which Anglo American believes are essential for a sustainable future for the mining industry.

Sir John Parker, Chairman of Anglo American, commented: "One of the greatest challenges facing Anglo American, and the mining industry as a whole, is reconciling the different views and concerns of our stakeholders about how mining should be conducted. At Anglo American, we believe the solution lies in forging the effective partnerships we need to build safe, sustainable businesses and ensure long-term shareholder value.

"We believe in the benefits of a smarter approach but this does not mean operating alone. Our sustainability performance is critical to our ability to drive value for all of our stakeholders - we simply will not be able to make progress unless we can take our key constituencies along with us on of our journey. We must all be in this together."

Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American, welcomed the report, commenting: "Our vision of long-term partnership with our stakeholders reflects our belief that, for us to be successful, we need to co-create a new deal around our core mining business.  We will only be able to continue to deliver returns to shareholders if, in the eyes of our key stakeholders, we continue to build on this vision by delivering value to and with broader society. Getting this right is 'mission-critical' for Anglo American if we are to make a positive difference and achieve that vision of being partners in the future."

Safety: Providing a safe and healthy workplace is our first priority.

• Throughout 2014, Anglo American made progress towards its goal to achieve zero harm in the workplace. Our lost time injury frequency rate improved for the third consecutive year by 29%. However, much more work needs to be done.
  
• In 2014, four employees and two contractors lost their lives in work-related activities at operations managed by Anglo American. While this represents an improvement in numbers, any loss of life is unacceptable to us. We continue to dedicate considerable effort to achieving, and maintaining, zero harm. We worked four months fatality-free in 2014, which reinforces our belief that zero harm is achievable.
  
• Over a 12 month period, Anglo American focused on raising awareness of safe driving practices and improving road infrastructure through road safety lectures, meetings and workshops at our Niobium and Phosphates businesses in Goiás state, Brazil. The project has contributed to enhanced road safety in the area, with a 70% reduction in the number of lives lost over the campaign period.

Enterprise Development: Supporting the development of new businesses is recognised as one of the most effective means of ensuring that communities benefit from mining over the long-term.

• Since 2008, we have supported 96,873 jobs, provided more than $100 million in funding and supported 58,257 SMEs inside and outside our supply chains.  
• Our enterprise development programmes are designed to foster entrepreneurs' potential to build local capacity and to ensure that the local economy is able to deliver opportunities even after mine closure.
• Our well-established schemes - Zimele in South Africa and Emerge in Chile - have supported 38,300 jobs. Based on our experience with these schemes, we developed a best-practice model, which we used to implement similar schemes in Botswana and Brazil in 2013, and in Peru in 2014.
• These three programmes have supported 1,588 jobs in 2014. We aim to support an additional 3,000 jobs by the end of 2015 and close to 10,000 by the end of 2016.

Water: With more than 70% of our mines located in water stressed areas, water is more important than ever to Anglo American.

• In 2014, for the second year running, we exceeded our 2020 water savings target of 14%. By the end of 2014, we had achieved an estimated 16% water saving against our projected water usage.
  
• Anglo American's total water consumption decreased from 201 million cubic metres in 2013 to 195 million cubic metres in 2014. This reduction was primarily achieved through higher levels of water recycling at our Los Bronces copper mine in Chile, the limited production at Platinum's Rustenburg operations during the strike, as well as water savings achieved through the implementation of the Water Efficiency Target Tool (WETT) programme.
  
• Of our total operational water requirements, 69% were met by recycling/re-using water.

Health: Managing health risks protects Anglo American's employees and communities, enhances productivity, and helps to ensure the long-term future of the business.

• In 2014, Anglo American continued to drive improvements across its occupational health and community health programmes by focusing on innovation and partnerships.
  
• Testing is a large component of our comprehensive wellness programme of prevention, care, support and treatment for HIV and AIDS. In 2014, we tested and counselled nearly 110,000 employees and contractors in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
  
• During the year, 86% of our full-time workforce participated in testing, which means that Anglo American is approaching the UNAIDS target that 90% of people living with HIV should know their status by 2020.

Climate Change and Energy: Climate change poses a significant business challenge. Energy and policy-associated costs are rising, consumer demand for products is changing, and the threat of the physical impact of climate change on operations and host communities is escalating.  

• A total of 325 projects completed to date accounted for energy savings of 4.3 million GJ, equivalent to a 5% reduction against our projected energy consumption in 2014, reducing our energy cost by $105 million.
  
• Similarly, our greenhouse gas emissions reduced by 4.2 million tonnes.  This means we are in reach of our overall targets for greenhouse gas (GHG)-emission and energy-consumption reductions - 19% and 7% respectively, by 2015.

To access the Sustainable Development Report 2014 in full, please visit our new reporting centre: http://www.angloamerican.com/reportingcentre.

For more information about Anglo American's approach to sustainable development, please visit http://www.angloamerican.com/development.aspx,  or watch Anglo American's sustainable development videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/angloamerican.

You can also follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/angloamerican, or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/angloamerican.

Notes to editors: 

Anglo American is a global and diversified mining business that provides the raw materials essential for economic development and modern life. Our people are at the heart of our business. It is our people who use the latest technologies to find new resources, plan and build our mines and who mine, process and move and market our products - from bulk commodities and base metals to precious metals and diamonds (through De Beers) - to our customers around the world. Our diversified portfolio of products spans the economic development cycle and, as a responsible miner, we are the custodians of precious resources. We work together with our key partners and stakeholders to unlock the long-term value that those resources represent for our shareholders, but also for the communities and countries in which we operate - creating sustainable value and making a real difference. Our mining operations, growth projects and exploration and marketing activities extend across southern Africa, South America, Australia, North America, Asia and Europe.

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