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Summer 2023
 
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New Gold and Rio Tinto are this year’s recipients of the prestigious Towards Sustainable Mining® (TSM) Excellence Awards, which aim to drive improvement across a range of social and environmental issues at the mine site level. The awards for New Gold and Rio

Tinto’s sustainability projects, which focused on community engagement and environmental stewardship, were announced by the Mining Association of Canada’s (MAC) Community of Interest Advisory Panel at the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum’s (CIM) Awards Gala in Montreal on May 2, 2023.

“Mining companies recognized by the TSM Excellence Awards represent the best of the best when it comes to exemplary responsible practices and strong commitments to ESG,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s President and CEO. “Our industry has a particularly important role to play in ensuring the minerals and metals needed for the technologies we rely on are readily available and it is integral that they be mined using the highest standards, like
TSM, in the world.”

According to a company press release, TSM is a mandatory component of MAC membership. The national independent Community of Interest Advisory Panel oversees the program and includes representatives from Indigenous communities, environmental organizations, labour, finance, local mining communities, social and faith-based organizations, and academia.

TSM performance is evaluated against detailed environmental and social performance standards, including tailings management, climate change, water stewardship, Indigenous and community relationships, safety and health, biodiversity conservation, crisis management, and preventing child and forced labour. It is a constantly evolving program, with new TSM protocols introduced every year to meet ever-changing societal expectations on what constitutes good practice. In fact, MAC is adding a new standard that is focusing on equity, diversity, and inclusion later this year.

“We are proud that TSM, a made-in-Canada standard, is now in the process of being implemented by 14 mining associations around the world, making it the most widespread ESG program of its kind,” said Gratton. “We applaud the work being done by this year’s Excellence Award winners as it showcases the positive results that can be achieved when environmental stewardship and community engagement are prioritized.”

Established in 2014, the TSM Excellence Awards include the TSM Environmental Excellence Award and the TSM Community Engagement Excellence Award. To be eligible for the awards, mining companies must be actively implementing TSM.

Community Engagement at Diavik Mine Turning Copper into “Gold”

Several years ago, employees at Diavik recognized an opportunity to repurpose copper wire from predominantly completed underground mining levels. 

A core group of passionate employees pitched the idea to Diavik – to salvage copper wire where possible, collect it in containers, and transport it offsite to donate to community groups. Diavik endorsed this idea and included this activity as part of scheduled work, so those who volunteered were paid for their time. This project grew substantially when, in 2019, Diane Haché, a retired employee, and her partner Michel Tremblay, a current employee, became involved. They worked to maximize the mine’s recycling efforts, through stripping and shipping of the salvaged copper for sale, with all proceeds going towards Diavik’s Community Contribution Program. The results have been significant, raising over $500,000 for local charities like the Stanton Territorial Hospital Foundation, YWCA NWT, HomeBase Yellowknife, Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation, and the NWT On The Land Collaborative. The initiative has diverted roughly 225,000 pounds of copper cable from the landfill.

This community-led project continues to expand. In 2022, the Common Ground Crew, an initiative run through the Yellowknife Women’s Society that provides day labour to people experiencing homelessness, started helping with the initiative. The crew worked alongside Diane Haché to process the copper, with wages taken from the proceeds. The initiative provided residents with several hundred hours of employment while also increasing the volume of processed copper. 

Diavik has now purchased a copper wire stripper to increase the rate and volume of salvaged copper that can be stripped. Further, copper cable can and will be salvaged through the mine’s closure process to go towards recycling and generating funds that can benefit local communities while minimizing the mine’s environmental footprint.

Transitioning to a cleaner economy starts with modifying practices and technologies to create economic opportunities out of the materials that might otherwise be thrown away. This is an example of the circular economy, a theory that supports business practices that extract as much value as possible from resources by recycling, repairing, reusing, repurposing, or refurbishing products and materials, eliminating waste and GHG emissions. Rio Tinto’s Diavik copper initiative exemplifies circular economy best practices through partnership and local community engagement, both central tenets of TSM’s indigenous and community relationship and climate change protocols.

MAC’s Community of Interest Advisory Panel was impressed by the significant impact this innovative recycling program has had in the local area, through employment, volunteer opportunities and charitable donations. As
well, they noted how this initiative provides one of the key metals essential to the green energy transition, copper, by repurposing materials that have already been used.

New Gold’s New Afton Mine Leading the Way in Energy and GHG Performance

With the rapid move to electrification of the transportation industry, sustainably produced copper is essential. As an energy intensive industry, reducing climate impacts from the mining process is important for sustainable production.

New Gold as a company is leading the way in its commitment to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. The New Afton Mine is both AAA verified, the highest rating in the TSM protocol for energy and GHG management, and is also the first and only mine in North America to be certified to the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) 50001:2011 Energy Management Standard.

Leading programs like TSM and ISO are well-established and widely respected as top-tier standards. When standards like ISO 50001 and TSM are met, it means energy management practices are at the highest level. New Gold’s New Afton Mine is also continuously trying to improve through the application of innovative new technologies and best practices, with the support of its Indigenous partners and employees.

Since first committing to ISO 50001 in 2014, New Afton has achieved annualized energy savings equivalent to 15% of its total 2021 energy consumption, and substantial GHG reduction. This is partly due to the mine’s adoption of low-carbon technologies, including the continued electrification of New Afton’s underground fleet via the use of battery electric trucks and loaders.

Combined with its TSM results, the ISO 50001 achievement represents the company’s dedication to lessening its environmental footprint and will hopefully inspire other companies in the industry to do the same. 

For more information about the TSM Excellence Awards and past winners, please visit www.mining.ca/ tsm-excellence-awards.

The Mining Association of Canada is the national organization for the Canadian mining industry. Its members account for most of Canada’s production of base and precious metals, uranium, diamonds, metallurgical coal, mined oil sands and industrial minerals and are actively engaged in mineral exploration, mining, smelting, refining, and semi-fabrication. Learn more at www.mining.ca. 

Reference 

The Mining Association of Canada. (2023, May 2). Canadian Mining Companies Recognized for Excellence in Sustainable Mining. Cision. Retrieved from www.newswire.ca/news-releases/canadian-mining-companies-recognized-for-excellence-in-sustainable-mining-883583173.html.