Anglo American Platinum have announced that its Mototolo and Amandelbult mines in South Africa have been assessed against the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s (IRMA) comprehensive mining standard for the first time, achieving the IRMA 75 and IRMA 50 level of performance respectively.
Following a surveillance audit at Unki mine, IRMA has confirmed Unki retains IRMA 75. This reflects Anglo American Platinum’s integrated approach to sustainability and its commitment to transparency in striving for the highest levels of responsible platinum group metals (PGMs) production.
Craig Miller, CEO of Anglo American Platinum, said: “Aligned to our strategy to be a leader in ESG, and adding value to the products that we mine, we are helping our customers to meet increasing expectations for responsibly sourced mined materials in an efficient and credible way. The IRMA assurance process has provided us with a valuable opportunity to measure our performance at Amandelbult and Mototolo against international best sustainability practices and identify next steps for improvement. Retaining IRMA 75 at Unki also provides assurance that we continue to implement the highest standards of responsible mining. We are immensely proud of the work the teams have been doing across these operations to support responsible mining and we look forward to continuing to lead the way in the mining sector globally.”
Mototolo and Amandelbult mines are the first PGM mines in South Africa to complete an IRMA audit. This follows the achievement of Anglo American’s Unki mine in Zimbabwe, the first in the world to publicly commit to be independently audited against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining and which also achieved IRMA 75 in 2021, and has been reconfirmed at IRMA 75 following a surveillance audit. The company has four owned mines, with three of them now being IRMA accredited.
Themba Mkhwanazi, Anglo American’s Regional Director – Africa and Australia, added: “Consumers are increasingly – and rightly – demanding assurance that the raw materials in their products are responsibly sourced. We believe our participation in IRMA helps promote transparency and best practice in sustainability, while adding value to our customers by helping them to meet increasing expectations on providing greater visibility of the origin and value chain of the future enabling metals and minerals they buy. We are continuing to make great progress towards assuring all our operations against this recognised responsible mining standard by 2025, as we committed to in our Sustainable Mining Plan.”
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, 75 or 100, signifying that a mine meets a core set of critical requirements together with at least 50%, 75% or 100% of the requirements in each of the four sections of the Standard for Responsible Mining being met respectively.
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.
Aimee Boulanger, Executive Director of IRMA, said: “Through detailed IRMA audit reports, mining companies, communities, and companies that purchase mined materials can gain the information they need to decide what’s going well – and what may require more attention – at specific mines. The Mototolo, Amandelbult and Unki reports demonstrate that these mines can point to transparent, independent evaluations of their environmental and social performance.”