Health, Safety and Environment

Whether they work in industrial sites or offices, we make the health of our employees in our DRC operations a priority – in the same way as we do across our global operations. We support their long-term well-being, as we understand that fit and healthy employees will support our ambition to become a health and safety leader in our industry.

We use various field programmes to manage occupational diseases and exposure to health risks, and our collaborators and contractors’ dependents benefit from the same services, especially through our WATU WETU medical centre located in the heart of Kolwezi City. 

Prime examples of our commitment to the health and well-being of the communities who host us are our contribution to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Lualaba and our regular participation in malaria control campaigns.

Our top priority in the workplace is to protect the health and well-being of all our employees, in compliance with our values. We are committed to operating safely, and believe that all workplace deaths, illnesses and injuries are preventable.

Our SafeWork framework is risk-based and focuses on eliminating deaths and serious injuries by identifying hazards that can lead to fatal incidents, and on developing vital behaviours and protocols to target said risks.

SafeWork aims to provide everyone in our company with the knowledge and tools to safely perform every task; the key message is that every individual has the power to stop dangerous work.

Our ambition is to prevent all fatalities, occupational diseases and work injuries.

Risk mitigation is at the heart of our approach to safety management. We seek to achieve this through our SafeWork initiative. Our leaders at all levels of the company are responsible for identifying and managing risks, creating and maintaining safe working environments and protecting our employees.
 

From project design to operational closure, we focus on reducing our physical footprint on the ground as well as on identifying, managing and addressing our potential impacts by applying the hierarchy of mitigation measures’ principles (avoid, minimise, restore/mitigate and compensate).

Our ambition is to be a leader in environmental performance, and to minimise environmental damage through environmental stewardship and responsible resource management across our global operations.

We develop and implement robust management systems for key environmental aspects such as land and biodiversity, air emissions, energy, water and waste.

We are committed to managing our land productively and sustainably by proactively managing our land properties, including those that have not been affected by industrial activity. In the spirit of the precautionary principle, we strive to understand and address the environmental challenges of our operations, as well as to encourage the resource efficiency and continuous improvement of our environmental performance, including incident prevention.

Our approach to environmental management aligns with international and industry-specific environmental standards and guidelines such as ICMM performance expectations, and supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

We conduct our work in compliance with legally designated areas, such as category I-IV protected areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. We do not operate or explore World Heritage sites.

We examine environmental risks and opportunities and integrate them into our planning, operating and business decisions. We commit to addressing potential impacts on biodiversity by applying the hierarchy of mitigation measures with the ambition of achieving no net loss in terms of biodiversity.

We respect the rights, interests, traditional knowledge, cultural heritage and ecosystem services of our local communities and indigenous peoples, and seek to incorporate them into our planning and operating practices.

We are committed to reducing our environmental impacts by reducing the number of environmental incidents and by not incurring fines, penalties or lawsuits. We have established a global goal of no moderate, major or catastrophic environmental incidents – see glossary for incident classification.

We report and record High Potential Risk incidents (HPRI), events that could have resulted in a catastrophic or major environmental incidents. Relevant management teams share lessons learned from Employee Representative Bodies (IRPs), and relevant assets are required to implement action plans to address causes and avoid duplication.