ANGLO-AMERICAN SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY AMIDST SOUTH AFRICA’S ENERGY CRISIS

By Zimkhita Kweza

In an era marked by the imperative to safeguard our planet’s future, the mining industry faces a critical juncture—one where profitability must harmonize with environmental preservation, and prosperity must coexist with social responsibility. Anglo American’s FutureSmart Mining Sustainability Strategy is built around three global sustainability pillars namely, Trusted Corporate Leader, Thriving Communities and Healthy Environment. The healthy environment pillar defines Anglo American’s journey towards a sustainable South African mining industry, focusing on climate change, biodiversity, and water stewardship.

DISSECTING THE CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY CRISIS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Over the past 10 years, Anglo-American has been working to ensure that its operations have the best available models to understand, assess, mitigate, and adapt to the physical risks of climate change. Informed by robust analysis and constant engagement with stakeholders, the company continues to align its portfolio with the needs of a low carbon world; reorientating operations towards carbon neutrality; pushing for decarbonisation along its value chains; and carefully considering the social and wider environmental interrelationships associated with the decarbonisation journey – doing its best to support a Just Transition.

An example of this is the company’s commitment to combatting energy shortages and reducing carbon emissions by investing in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. Anglo-American has established strong working relationships with the government, regulators, and the state power utility Eskom to help fast-track the energy transition for operations in energy crisis ridden South Africa.

To deliver on this ambition, it has entered into an alliance with global renewables company EDF Renewables, and launched a new jointly owned company, Envusa Energy. The partnership with EDF Renewables provides a system which benefits from leading mining and renewables innovation to abate the largest sole source of Anglo American’s Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions, from the use of coal fired electricity on South Africa’s power grid. The aim is not just to provide operations with green energy but to also help alleviate the national electricity supply challenges, support public policy goals, and support the long-term decarbonisation of the South African economy in line with the government’s long-term commitment to a just transition to a post-carbon world.

UNPACKING ENVUSA ENERGY’S LAUNCH STRATEGY

Initially, Envusa Energy will launch a network of more than 600 MW of on-site and off-site solar photovoltaic and wind farm projects. This is intended to form the development of a broader regional renewable energy ecosystem for southern Africa, which is expected to have a renewable power generation capacity of between 3–5 GW by 2030.

The first phase of development is expected to be funded and ready for construction to begin in 2023. This will include national conservation actions for highly threatened frog species and their freshwater habitats in South Africa; A nature-based economy for the benefit of habitat, species and people in the Greater Anysberg Conservation Initiative, South Africa, and Sand fynbos ecological restoration in the Cape Floristic Region in South Africa.

In May 2022, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attended the launch of Anglo American’s 2 MW hydrogen-battery hybrid truck. It can generate more power than its diesel predecessor and is capable of carrying a 290-tonne payload replacing the use of diesel in the Group’s global haul truck fleet, while creating a hydrogen fuel production and supply infrastructure that can serve the broader economy.

WATER STEWARDSHIP:

Mining remains a water-intensive industry and the global water supplies remains stressed amid the ongoing impact of climate change and variability, with increasing extreme weather events. To address these challenges, the company has made water stewardship an integral part of operations across all sites.

With predicted global water shortfall of 40% by 2030, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. Anglo – American is rethinking its future reliance on fresh water by reducing fresh water use in its direct operations. Therefore, the company is implementing initiatives to meet its 2030 freshwater reduction targets, which will include diversion of decent quality water back into the catchments where it operates, increase the use of non-fresh water and increase recycling and re-use of mine water.

To combat the rising global water scarcity crisis the mining giant has placed a pathway for the achievement of its ambitious Sustainable Mining Plan goal of reducing Group-wide freshwater withdrawals in water scarce areas by 50% by 2030, relative to the 2015 baseline.

Operations at Mogalakwena and Rustenburg in South Africa have an agreement with three local municipalities to use treated effluent pumped from the local wastewater treatment works. This reserves potable water for use by local municipalities and enhances the conglomerates water security position. Anglo American has been working with AB InBev and the Strategic Water Partners Network since 2019 to develop a business case and projects to reduce water leakages and unbilled water to improve the water security for the city of Polokwane, South Africa.

One of the most densely populated and economically significant areas in South Africa’s Limpopo province, the city currently obtains its water from local sources that are reaching upper limits of supply and are vulnerable during periods of low rainfall. A water conservation and demand management strategy and business plan for Polokwane was developed to help reduce water losses, as well as unbilled and unaccounted-for water. Recommended priority interventions include visible leakage repair, bulk meter replacement and installation to improve the accuracy of data, pressure management, improved major consumer metering and monitoring, as well as flow, pressure, and level monitoring.

Another form of water conservation the company is expanding into is the use of lower quality water which can be used in many processing operations (from dust suppression to ore processing) and reduces the need for potable water. Currently, approximately 60% of water required is met by recycled water.

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION:

As a responsible corporate citizen, Anglo American has an ethical and moral obligation to protect and preserve biodiversity.

Established in 2020, the conservation grant seeks to deliver positive impact, demonstrating and sharing positive outcomes in the wider landscape and seascape, countries, and regions in which Anglo American operates. The conservation grant was first offered to the Group’s South America region in 2020 and then targeted southern Africa in 2021. Projects to date include a diverse range of species, such as sea turtles, frogs, large carnivores, and forest elephants. Landscape and habitats represented have ranged from high alpine to deserts and mountains to fynbos. Projects have also covered a variety of focus areas, from sustainable livelihoods to outdoor classrooms.

In 2022, the company rolled out an ambitious programme to more sites across operations. This approach involves sequencing DNA extracted from water and soil samples collected at sites, which enables the identification of individual species using bioinformatics analysis. This is a critical tool for measuring biodiversity at sites to a far greater degree of accuracy than traditional manual observation or sampling and provides a means to measure recovery and overall ecosystem health.

At the end of 2022, a series of important goals and targets was agreed as part of COP15 in Montreal, Canada. The new Global Biodiversity Framework sets out some key goals to further halt nature loss and drive nature recovery. Anglo American was an active participant in COP15 alongside many long-term NGO and industry partners as key sessions were held on a range of important topics from disclosure to the importance of indigenous knowledge through to the application and key role of nature-based solutions.

In an age where environmental challenges loom large and the call for responsible corporate stewardship grows ever louder, Anglo American's resolute commitment to a sustainable future shines as a beacon of hope.