Anglo American’s Unki mine achieves IRMA 75 on responsible mining standard

Anglo American announces that its Unki platinum mine in Zimbabwe has been assessed against the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s (IRMA) comprehensive mining standard, achieving the IRMA 75 level of performance, reflecting Anglo American’s commitment to transparency and to striving for the highest standards of responsible mining.

The Unki mine was the first in the world to publicly commit to be independently audited against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining in 2019 and is both the first mine in Africa, and the first producing platinum group metals operation to complete the audit, which was verified by SCS Global Services.

Natasha Viljoen, Chief Executive of Anglo American’s Platinum Group Metals business, said: “Anglo American has a longstanding commitment as a leader in sustainability. Consumers around the world are increasingly and rightly demanding products made from metals and minerals that are responsibly sourced, meeting the highest ethical and sustainability standards. Our alignment with IRMA is part of our Sustainable Mining Plan commitment to assure all our operations against a recognised responsible mining standard by 2025.”

The IRMA scoring system recognises four levels of performance: IRMA Transparency, in which a mine is third-party-assessed and publicly shares its scores; IRMA 50 or 75, signifying that a mine meets a core set of critical requirements together with at least 50% or 75% of the requirements in each of the four sections of the Standard for Responsible Mining (covering business integrity, planning for positive legacies, environment, and social performance); and IRMA 100 Certified, which signifies the mine meets all of the Standard’s requirements.

Aimee Boulanger, Executive Director of IRMA, said: “Anglo American’s leadership has been pivotal to the success and growing adoption of IRMA’s Standard, including by some of the world’s largest consumer brands. During the ten-year process of crafting the Standard, the Anglo American team did not shy away from difficult conversations about how to best measure responsible mining in a way that is at once practicable for the industry and that meets the expectations of civil society. Now, it is sharing the results of its own operations as measured against the world’s most robust definition of responsible mining. We commend Anglo American’s continued leadership in advancing IRMA’s vision.”

Walter Nemasasi, General Manager of Unki mine, commented: “The IRMA assurance process has provided us with a valuable opportunity to measure our performance at Unki 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 across Anglo American.”

“SCS Global Services is pleased to have been the certification body for Anglo American’s Unki mine and recognises their achievement of IRMA 75 level certification,” stated Stanley Mathuram, Executive Vice President at SCS Global Services. “Having worked through the extremely detailed auditing process alongside other stakeholders and IRMA to verify performance at Anglo American’s first mine, it is gratifying to see the much-needed goals of transparency in responsible mining realised through IRMA certification.”

Other Anglo American operations that have completed the IRMA self-assessment stage and are now scheduled to be audited include the Barro Alto nickel operation in Brazil and the Amandelbult and Mogalakwena PGMs operations in South Africa.

IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining has been developed over a decade 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, and is considered to be one of the most rigorous certification processes.

For further information, please contact:

Media - UK
James Wyatt-Tilby
[email protected]

Marcelo Esquivel
[email protected]

Katie Ryall
[email protected]

Investors - UK
Paul Galloway
[email protected]

Robert Greenberg
[email protected]

Emma Waterworth
[email protected]

South Africa
Sibusiso Tshabalala
[email protected]

Nomonde Ndwalaza
[email protected]

About Anglo American

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 operations, development projects and undeveloped resources, provides many of the metals and minerals that enable a cleaner, greener, more sustainable world and that meet the fast growing consumer-driven demands of developed and maturing economies. With our people at the heart of our business, we use innovative practices and the latest technologies to mine, process, move and market our products to our customers – and to discover new resources – safely and sustainably.

As a responsible producer of diamonds (through De Beers), copper, platinum group metals, the steelmaking ingredients of iron ore and metallurgical coal, and nickel – with crop nutrients in development and thermal coal operations planned for divestment - we are committed to being carbon neutral across our operations by 2040. We work together with our business partners and diverse stakeholders to unlock sustainable value from precious natural resources for the benefit of the communities and countries in which we operate, for society as a whole, and for our shareholders. 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 organisation with a mission to protect people and the environment directly affected by mining. IRMA does 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 organisation 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 recognising 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 organisations.

About SCS Global Services (SCS)

SCS has been a global leader in third-party environmental, sustainability and food quality certification, auditing, testing and standards development for more than three decades. SCS programs span a wide cross-section of industry sectors, recognizing exemplary performance in natural resource management, green building, food and agriculture, and consumer products. SCS is a Benefit Corporation, reflecting its commitment to socially and environmentally responsible business practice. www.scsglobalservices.com