Diversified miner Anglo American published its fifteenth annual sustainability report – ‘Driving Change, Defining Our Future’ – alongside its 2015 annual report last month.

Both reports outline the company’s strategic plans to focus on a core portfolio of assets as it continues to emphasise the central role of sustainability in creating value for all stakeholders during a transformative period.

Anglo American’s materially streamlined portfolio will focus on its diamond, platinum-group metals and copper assets.

The company highlights that the core portfolio of competitive, long-life assets offers considerable organic growth potential and is positioned to deliver robust profitability and cash flows throughout the price cycle. It also offers greater exposure to the fast-growing consumer demand sectors as the global economy evolves.

Anglo American chairperson John Parker highlights that the company will be able to make a positive and sustainable contribution to society only if it “can maintain trusting and effective relationships with [its] wide-ranging and often conflicting stakeholder base”. He adds that only by being “partners in the future [will] mining companies be able to secure and maintain their licences to operate, thus laying the foundation for prosperity that endures beyond the lives of their operations”.

Company CEO Mark Cutifani adds: “Anglo American is taking appropriate steps to ensure it builds a more resilient business and continues to play its wider role in society by creating real and sustainable value. As a business, we can deliver that value to shareholders and society . . . only if we . . . are profitable and in a position of financial strength.”

Anglo American’s sustainability report highlights progress and ambitions in a number of areas, including safety and the company’s commitment to achieving zero harm at its operations.

The report highlights that, in 2015, three employees and three contractors lost their lives in work-related activities at operations managed by Anglo American. “Whilst this is the lowest number of workplace deaths in a full production year, any loss of life is unacceptable,” the company states.

However, Anglo American achieved an encouraging fatality-free final quarter for 2015.

The company initiated a control-improvement programme last year, which engaged every one of its employees and contractors, ensuring that the right controls are in place and effectively monitored. As a result, the company achieved its best safety performance in a full production year.

The report also highlights the company’s commitment to controlling the health risks of employees. The number of new cases of occupational diseases reported in 2015 was 163, down 7% from the 175 cases reported in 2014 and down 35% since 2010.

Last year, the company tested and counselled nearly 90 000 employees and contractors for HIV/Aids in Southern Africa.

The report notes that, over the past year, the number of new HIV infections decreased significantly, while the uptake of antiretroviral therapy (ART) by HIV-positive employees increased by 34%. This brought the total percentage of HIV-positive employees on ART from 53% in 2014 to 72% in 2015, and closer to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids – commonly referred to as UNAids – global target of 90% by 2020.