Environment
Climate change and energy
Climate change is a key challenge of our era. We recognise the need to take meaningful action towards addressing its causes, and to help protect our employees, assets, as well as the communities and environments linked to our operations, against its potential impacts.
There are a number of strategies that underpin our approach to climate change. These include a focus on energy efficiency through asset optimisation, carbon-reducing projects, low-carbon technologies and adaptation to climate change.
Targets and objectives
We are committed to reducing energy intensity by 15% by 2014, based on the 2004 baseline. Over the decade to 2014, we are aiming for a 10% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of production.
Performance
Energy consumption
During 2009, we consumed globally 106 million gigajoules (GJ)* of energy (2008: 106 million GJ; 105 excluding businesses since divested). This 3 million GJ like-for-like increase is almost entirely attributable to our iron ore business in Brazil reporting on its energy use for the first time since acquisition.
Water
Water is a vital input to our operations and the security of its supply is of strategic importance both to us and the communities and countries in which we operate. The threat posed by climate change is also requiring us to look at new approaches to managing water in our operations, many of which are located in some of the most water-stressed regions of the world.
Our strategy
We aim to use water sparingly and efficiently, reuse what we can and release only water of an acceptable quality back into the system. It is in this sense that we strive to be a leading custodian of water.
Performance
Water consumption
In 2009, we consumed globally 125.3 million cubic metres of water for primary activities. While this represents a relatively small year-on-year increase (2008: 122.7 million cubic metres), it includes 3.8 million cubic metres of water from the our iron ore operations in Brazil that have begun reporting for the first time since acquisition; as well as an additional 5.7 million cubic metres of harvested rainfall that our platinum business had not previously included in its reported figures. On a like-for-like basis, we achieved a 6% water saving between 2008 and 2009.
Rehabilitation
Our aim is to rehabilitate as much of the affected land as possible during the mine's operational life. This generally results in a better rehabilitation outcome, reduces costs in the long run, and reduces our closure liabilities.
The Anglo American Environment Way outlines our performance standard for rehabilitation.
Objectives and targets
Our rehabilitation objectives and targets for all our operations are to:
- Keep the disturbed operational footprint to a minimum
- Where disturbance does occur apply reclamation to the site as soon as possible after the source of the disturbance is removed or completed
- Keep the loss or contamination of rehabilitation materials (e.g. backfill and soils) to a minimum
- Where possible and applicable, keep rehabilitated areas free draining
Performance
To measure our performance, we distinguish between ‘land under company charge’ and ‘land altered for mineral extraction’.
In total, 981,154 hectares of land falls under the direct management of Anglo American.
This includes land owned, leased, covered by surface rights, or occupied by third parties, but excludes undeveloped projects or prospects where the land does not yet fall under our direct management.
Of this, 85,415 hectares have been disturbed for the purposes of mineral extraction, including mining activities, mineral processing, mineral waste disposal, and all support infrastructure.
About 11,650 hectares of mining disturbed land has been rehabilitated (this does not include land that has been rehabilitated, but not yet approved as such by authorities).
Land stewardship
Our approach to land stewardship takes direction from our overall environmental principle of ‘zero harm’. We aim to minimise our negative impacts and leave a positive legacy.
We believe that robust management of environmental issues is a fundamental element of good overall operational management, and a source of competitive advantage. Poor management of environmental issues is inconsistent with our values and long-term business interests.
The Anglo American Environment Way
There are inevitable disturbances to the land when we extract minerals. By implementing our policy called the Anglo American Environment Way (AEW), we endeavour to minimise the negative impacts of our activities, drive positive outcomes, rehabilitate disturbed land on an ongoing basis, and ultimately restore the disturbed land to an agreed land capability and land use at mine closure.
The AEW comprises 10 performance standards that cumulatively contribute to effective land management. These include standards related to rehabilitation, biodiversity, water, mine closure, mineral waste, air quality and hazardous substances.
Biodiversity
We own or have rights to large areas of land on a number of continents. With those rights come responsibilities. This is particularly the case in South Africa and Brazil – nations rich in biodiversity.
Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth. We have a responsibility to minimise the negative impacts that may arise as a result of land clearance, or any failure to manage air emissions and water discharges properly. Working towards the lowest possible impact is especially important in remote areas, those that are very bio-diverse, and where local communities have a direct dependence on the natural environment.
Our strategy
We established our biodiversity strategy in 2002 when we committed ourselves to the active stewardship of biodiversity in all phases of our activities. The following year we announced that every operation would develop and implement its own biodiversity action plan (BAPs) to help us manage those responsibilities.
Performance
To monitor and measure our biodiversity performance, we use a system of third-party environmental-management-system audits and biodiversity peer reviews.
These provide operations with guidance on how to improve their performance and achieve full compliance with our standards, as well as to promote learning and to share good practices.
Since the peer-review programme began in 2005, 60 such reviews have taken place – 13 of those were during 2009.
Waste management
Our mining operations inevitably generate mineral waste, such as rock and tailings, and non-mineral waste such as general and industrial waste. Considerably less non-mineral waste is produced on our operations now than before. That's because we are increasingly recycling non-mineral waste wherever possible, either for our own use or by transforming it into commercial commodities.
The Anglo American Environment Way’s Mineral Residue, Non-Mineral Waste and Hazardous Substances performance standards define our approach to waste management. Together, they aim to ensure that waste streams are handled responsibly and that the ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ hierarchy is applied whenever possible.
Air quality
Managing air quality is essential to the way we do business. There is potential for us to generate gaseous and particulate pollution during our operations, which could have a negative impact on local, regional and global air quality.
The main pollutants we generate from mining and processing are particulate emissions (fine and coarse dust), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Pollutants can be difficult to measure, particularly when it comes to calculating the amount of dust generated by mining operations. For such sources, we use emission estimates which are based on internationally accepted techniques, and use these estimations as a benchmark to measure and improve on our performance.
Performance
SO2 is primarily a local pollutant with most significant impact potentially occurring in the close vicinity of the source. The largest single contributor to our SO2 emissions is our platinum business, which reported 15,300 tonnes of SO2 emissions in 2009 – marginally more than the 15,000 tonnes in 2008. As in 2008, there were no instances of the national SO2 annual average standard being exceeded, nor were any concentrations above the average daily standard.
Air quality performance standard
In 2009, we launched our Air Quality performance standard. This forms part of our suite of performance standards called the Anglo American Environment Way. While each business unit faces different challenges, setting common, minimum performance standards based on European Union standards ensures air quality management is a priority across all of our operations.
Materials stewardship
The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) defines materials stewardship as ‘the responsible provision of materials and supervision of material flows towards the creation of maximum societal value and minimum impact on man and the environment’.
In June 2008, we held a materials stewardship workshop to develop our understanding of the issues involved and how they relate to our business. We now have a materials stewardship working group in place, which is developing a framework and strategy. To do so, the group is pulling together expertise from across the company, including the environmental department, occupational and community health, safety, environmental geochemistry, marketing, procurement and supply chain managers, as well as external life cycle analysis expertise.
The environmental geochemistry team contributes to materials stewardship through its work on exploration and mine environment geochemical surveys, geochemistry best practice and through research projects in conjunction with a number of academic partners. This has enhanced our understanding of the human health and environmental risks that can arise from our operations.
The environment in China
Yang Quarry
Yang Quarry was formed from five smaller, private quarries in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province. Our subsidiary, Tarmac, established a complete system to improve safety and environmental performance and to ensure benefits to the community. At the national China Mining Conference in November 2007, Yang Quarry won the Environmental Award for its excellent performance in this area.
Yang Quarry has adopted a modern mining method that includes restoration while mining. It invested heavily dust collection equipment and noise suppressing enclosures to minimise the impact on the environment. It also planted trees and grass in the mining areas and installed settlement tanks and ponds to control water runoff.