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It is probably an understatement to say that Environment, Sustainable and Governance (ESG) issues are becoming an ever more significant part of the investment communities’ criteria when choosing what to invest in.
For the mining company’s themselves, it is vital that local communities are brought on the journey as early as possible and that long lasting, high levels of environmental standards are introduced to ensure there are no risks of disaster down the line.
Unfortunately, it is those very disasters, that in the past have put pressure on authorities and companies themselves to respectively firm up legislation and adhere better with existing laws. A case of too little, too late in some instances where lives have been lost and irreparable damage has been done to the relationship with local communities.
Other issues, such as the current global Covid-19 outbreak, serve to highlight strengths in organisations that, with the correct capacity and platform in place, have been able swiftly act to protect their employees and support local communities in dealing with this unforeseen event in history.
Horizonte Minerals has, for many years, provided commentary on its ESG initiatives in the Annual Report, corporate presentations and media interviews. Now, as the Company evolves so should its sustainability efforts.
As a result, we have just published our first standalone Sustainability Report https://horizonteminerals.com/uk/en/sustainability_report/. Not only does the report highlight our ESG achievements but it discusses our approach to accountable and transparent corporate governance, maintaining a safe workplace, minimising our environmental impact and providing value for all stakeholders as well as outlining our commitment to future goals.
We believe true sustainability requires an early start, allowing for a company that is preproduction like ourselves to understand better the cultures, practices and needs of the communities near our assets, ahead of the inevitable changes a mine will bring.
This early “conversation” allows us to make the right investments in projects from the start and helps people affected by this large-scale industrial project to better understand the measures we are taking to ensure long term benefit for them and that we are the right custodian to extract the resource in the most environmentally friendly manner. Thereby obtaining a social licence to operate from the start.
The report has been prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards ‘Essential’ option and has not been externally audited. For reference the GRI Index is included on page 42 of this report.
In line with these international standards, we understand the importance of tailoring our approach to sustainability to the specific requirements of our business and our stakeholders. For this reason, we conducted a desk-based materiality assessment to gain insight into the views and priorities of our stakeholders.
In a recent piece titled: Nickel investing comes with a heavy price, Financial Times columnist John Dizard discussed that while nickel may be an essential metal for the electric vehicle revolution that is currently taking place, it is difficult to find highly ethical sources of the metal in many cases.
Political risk where the commodity is found is often to blame, in others, it is environmental concern of assets that were built decades ago and are still operating.
The article concludes, “…the rest of us need nickel, too, if we want vehicles (electric or otherwise), aircraft, kitchenware or gleaming high-tech labs. There will not be enough of it. Think of a way to make it more investible.”
While the economics of our projects show them to be the logical next generation of nickel mines to be developed in a mining friendly destination, This report now shows we are striving to ensure they the best placed from an ESG perspective too.
