There are risks in every business and the mining industry has its own inherent risks. Understanding and managing them proactively are a key part of our strategy for growth. We manage risk by grouping them into seven main business functions:
- corporate development
- commercial
- operational (includes safety & health, environmental and community affairs risks)
- information technology
- human resources
- legal
- financial
Like others in the mining industry, we face the unique challenges of managing risk at our operations. For example, operational risks can cause injuries, delay production and increase costs. Spills and other environmental risks can damage the environment and affect our relationships with surrounding communities, and the costs of closing a mine can increase. We use an enterprise risk management (ERM) system to assess risks in a consistent way, using a common set of tools. This helps us mitigate risk and minimize its impact on shareholder value.
About ERM
Using our ERM system, we evaluate risk against our four core values:
- operating safely
- making a profit
- protecting the environment
- treating people and communities well.
Our ERM system is another important instrument in our sustainability toolbox, available to the head office and all operations. ERM assesses the risks of different business functions in a consistent manner and each risk is measured against our four core values.
In 2007, the main risk management concerns related to responsible mining included:
- employee and contractor safety
- challenges of developing relationships with communities affected by development projects and of gaining the community trust needed to earn the social license to operate
- impacts of our operations on the environment
- rising costs of new project development, in particular costs related to mine waste and water management.
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