Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) announced on Thursday that its Mogalakwena mine had been assessed by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s (IRMA) mining standard, achieving an IRMA 50 level of sustainability.
The independent audit provided Mogalakwena with an average score of 50% across the various requirements set out by the IRMA standard, which measures business integrity, positive legacies, and social and environmental responsibility.
The score also means that Mogalakwena “substantially”, if not fully, complied with all IRMA’s critical requirements, with all of Amplats’ platinum group metals (PGM) mines having now been assured under the framework.
Its Unki mine in Zimbabwe was the world’s first to publicly commit to the independent audit, achieving a score of IRMA 75 in both 2021 and 2024, while Mototolo and Amandelbult were audited for the first time last year, recording IRMA 75 and IRMA 50 scores respectively.
The Mogalakwena audit was met by two community complaints in September and November last year by regional NGO Bench Marks Foundation and 31 residents of Sekuruwe, a community directly affected by the mine.
The community raised concerns about the integrity of the audit process, accusing it of deliberately limiting their ability to provide input to auditors by providing insufficient notice before the on-site component of the process.
IRMA said these complaints were being addressed through its issues resolution procedure, a platform for direct communication between Anglo American, Bench Marks and the community signatories. The outcome of this process is yet to be seen.
“Complaints are a critically important part of the IRMA system. They ensure all voices are heard in the process, making for more robust understanding of the complex issues associated with mining.
“IRMA uses these complaints to improve the system and provide transparency about how the system continues to evolve to create value for all,” said the auditor.
Amplats told shareholders Mogalakwena’s score reflected the group’s “integrated approach to sustainability and its commitment to transparency in striving for responsible PGM production”.
“As a leading adopter of IRMA, we recognise that stakeholders, including our shareholders and customers, need to trust where and how our metals are mined,” said CEO Craig Miller.
“We are immensely proud of the work the teams are doing across all of our operations to support responsible mining, enabling us to demonstrate an ethical value chain for our metals, and we look forward to continuing to lead the way in the PGMs sector globally,” he said.
After celebrating more than two years without fatalities, Amplats’ safety record was marred by two deaths during the final quarter of last year. Basanda Langeni lost his life at the Amandelbult Dishaba mine in October and Tshepo Tebele was killed on the job at the group’s Modikwa joint venture.
While SA mining recorded the lowest number of fatalities in the sector’s history last year, with 45 deaths, SA’s deep underground PGM and gold mines are consistently the most accident-prone, with 16 fatalities reported in the PGM sector.
Sibanye-Stillwater saw eight mineworkers lose their lives last year, a safety performance which the group itself called “tragic and unacceptable” in its annual results for the year to end-December.
Sibanye is next in line for IRMA’s auditing process, with independent assessments of its Marikana and Rustenburg mines in SA and its US PGM operations now under way.
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