East Africa-focused gold producer, developer and explorer Shanta Gold achieved several sustainability and health and safety milestones in 2021, such as a lost time injury frequency rate of zero and a total recordable injury frequency rate of 0.67.
According to its first sustainability report – which covers activities at its Tanzania-based New Luika gold mine and Singida project, and Kenya-based West Kenya project throughout 2021 – the miner achieved a rate of 99% local employment in Tanzania and Kenya; while local procurement totalled $67.9-million from Tanzanian or Kenyan suppliers. This figures covers 85% of total purchases.
As for its carbon intensity, Shanta Gold’s Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions intensity in 2021 was 0.73 t of carbon dioxide equivalent for every ounce of gold sold.
The miner was also awarded first place for its environmental and safety compliance, corporate social responsibility projects, and local content performance at the 2022 International Mineral and Mining Investment Conference in Tanzania.
Shanta CEO Eric Zurrin says the company has “always” sought to put social responsibility at the “heart” of what it does and conduct business ethically to deliver sustainable returns for shareholders while creating long-term benefits for its host-country stakeholders within and around its assets.
“In 2021 we benchmarked, measured and disclosed our performance in relation to material environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in our inaugural sustainability report, informed by a materiality assessment conducted with our key stakeholders in consultation with an expert independent sustainability consultant,” he says.
In terms of the environment and community stewardship, Shanta had zero water discharge in 2021, zero reportable tailings incidents and zero reportable environmental and community incidents across its operations in the year.
Shanta’s investment in community projects in 2021 totalled $300 000, with $1.3-million spent on community programmes in host countries since 2017.
Further, the miner completed a materiality assessment in 2021, with internal and external stakeholders, to proactively address key ESG risks and identify opportunities to increase positive impact for stakeholders.
Going forward, Shanta is committing, this year, to start aligning climate disclosure against the framework set out by the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures to report in line with best practice for main market listed companies.
Zurrin adds that in 2021, Shanta continued supporting its local communities through direct funding of health and education-focused community projects, while strengthening the socioeconomic development of the regions it operates in through local employment and procurement, represented by the 99% of its total employees who are employed from host nations and 87% of procurement coming from Tanzania or Kenya.
“We were pleased to benchmark well against our peers on an intensity basis for Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions and are committed to do what we can to further decarbonise our operations,” he says.