Good morning and welcome to the Perseus Mining Sustainable Development Report Webinar for Financial Year 2021. All attendees are in a listen only mode. If you would like to ask a question, please enter it into the Q and A panel within Zoom. I will now hand over to Perseus Mining Managing Director and Chief Executive, Jeff Quartermaine. Thanks, Jeff.
Thank you very much, Nathan, and good morning to all of our listeners. What I would like to do today firstly is To introduce you to Jess Vollick, our Head of Sustainability, Jess will give you a fairly thorough overview of The sustainability journey that this company is on having released our report for the year ending 2021 Earlier today. But before I hand to Jess, I'd just like to provide a little bit of context for what's to come. The subject of sustainability in ESG is something that has gained a lot of market attention in fairly recent times. And as a result, Many of the listeners on the call today who are interested in the subject of sustainability may not be so familiar with Perseus.
And I think it's important before we start talking about the sustainability journey in detail to give you a bit of context The company about where we've come from and where we are hoping to go in future years. So as the slide says here that we are A West African focused gold producer, developer and explorer. Now in that context, we've been operating as a company since about the company was initiated in 2,004, but we have been operating in West Africa since around 2,006. Now for many people in Australia in And I know outside of Africa, when a discussion about Africa occurs, many people have this vision that Africa is a single entity. It's a single What applies in one part of the continent applies in another part of the continent.
I can tell you that that is absolutely not Where Perseus operates is in West Africa. We're in 2 countries. We're in Ghana and we're in Cote d'Ivoire. 1 is a former French colony. And even though the 2 countries are part, they couldn't be more different in the way they go about their business.
Ethnically, they're probably very similar, but they have very different cultures, very different legal systems, etcetera, etcetera. So, there are some quite distinct differences. However, both countries are excellent places to operate. And we've been very successful in the last 10 years or so in bringing online 3 minutees that are now up and running and producing very well. In doing what we've done, we've been driven all of the way by a vision that is fairly clear.
What Perseus is about is generating Material benefits for all of our stakeholders in fair and equitable proportions. And we aim to do that by undertaking socially and environmentally responsible And then commercially successful discovery, development and operations of mines. And through that activity, we can generate Significant amounts of cash flow, which can then be converted to benefits for all of our stakeholders. Our stakeholders, of course, range through Shareholders, financiers, but also very, very importantly our host governments, our host communities, our employees, our suppliers of goods And all of these stakeholders are seeking benefits from Perseus' activity. We set ourselves a corporate objective some time ago of producing around a half And I'm very pleased to say that we're well and truly on that path.
And by the end of fiscal 'twenty two, we expect that we will have achieved that outcome. And we're now in the process of looking a little bit further afield and looking at what our next target will be. And I think most likely it will be to sustain that level of production Out to the end of the decade and beyond. Now underpinning everything that we do do is a very, very clear set of values that we as a company Have worked up and we as a company strictly live to. And those values involve teamwork, integrity, Commitment and achievement.
And particularly, the last of those, achievement, is very important in the context of this sustainability because what we say as a group of people is that what we say we're going to do, we are going to do and we do deliver. And I think those of you that have followed the For the last 10 years or so, we'd recognize that that is something that Perseus is known for doing what we say we're going to do. Now I'll pass to Jess, who's going to tell you about the sustainability journey that we're on. And you'll hear the sorts of things that we aim to do, the things that we have done to date and the
Thanks very much, Jeff, and thanks, Nathan. So just to follow on, hi, everyone, and thanks joining this webinar to discuss our financial year 2021 sustainable development report that was released to the ASX to the market early today. As Jeff said, I'm Jessica Volich, the Group General Manager of Sustainability here at Perseus. And thanks Thank you for everyone for attending today. We're really pleased to see the interest in our from our investment community, and we're looking forward to hearing your questions and the feedback on our work.
As Jeff said, the purpose of today is to take you through the key highlights and the journey that we're on, and also to answer any questions that you may have. But first, I just wanted to talk about our sustainability reporting journey. So our FY 'twenty one report is our 3rd consolidated Sustainability report. You can see our reporting history here on this slide, which is summarized. And this report that we've released today is a really important one for us For a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it's built on and really embedded our reporting against key frameworks. Last report we reported against the GRI and the mining and metal supplement and did a GRI compliant report As well as our TCFD report and mapped to the SASB requirements and other frameworks that are relevant to us. And this report has really built on that work and really, we've been working hard to strengthen our data reporting it Reporting and embedded into business as usual, to support both our continuous improvement in performance as well as our transparency and disclosure. And secondly, this report is important because we've transitioned from a calendar year reporting cadence for our last two reports And now financial year reporting, which is in line with our annual reporting. And this has really been important for us in driving further integration of our sustainability with our financial We released our last report only last April, so this is our second report in the space of 6 months, But the next one will be released this time next year in line with our annual report.
And just as a note, I guess just because of that, Some of the figures that you see in the slides and also when you go through the Sustainability Report, you'll see that some are in calendar years and some Are in financial years, and that's really because we've been transitioning our reporting. So that's just something to note as we go through today. So moving on, Just before we get into the detail, I just wanted to recap on our approach to sustainability. There's a range of things in our report that hasn't changed since our last report, And one of them is our overarching approach to sustainability. And the grounding principle for us at Perseus is really the belief that responsible gold mining can play A really progressive role in sustainable development of emerging economies, whilst also delivering sustainable returns to our shareholders.
We've established our framework for this, which you can see summarized in the wheel here with our material issues around the outside. And in the next, the light blue of the wheel is how we drive continuous improvement in these material issues. And then finally, in the center of our approach is As our foundation is good governance. There's some key things to note in relation to this framework that we've been working on over the last 6 months that I really wanted to call out. Firstly, we did a check-in on our materiality analysis following engagement with key stakeholders and investors around March And the materiality of most of these has not changed significantly since our last report.
However, there are 2 that have shifted, which is climate change and security. For climate change, the materiality to our business has increased Given the pace and momentum behind the transition of the global economy to a low carbon future, particularly as we head into COP26, And security has also become an increasing focus for us in Cote d'Ivoire where terrorism risks in countries to the north In the vicinity of our Sissingue operations have increased due to the activity of jihadist groups in the Sahel region. So that's just an area that we're watching. We've been also working to strengthen our sustainability performance framework and governance. We've integrated sustainability further into our business 4 cards, which is linked to executive remuneration covering both environmental and social performance metrics as well as safety.
Also, on governance, we appointed Amber Banfield to the role of Non Executive Director in May 2021. And Amber has a strong track record in sustainability and delivering sustainable solutions for the resources industry. And in her role as non executive director and chairperson of the Board's Audit and Risk Committee, it includes a leading oversight over our sustainability One of the key things we've also been working on over the last 6 months is updating our enterprise risk management framework, Really to drive further consistency of risk assessment across our business and increase our focus on our group enterprise level risk, which The sustainability work program to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals of the countries in which we operate. The work to start this work will really start to At the pace as we progress through FY 'twenty two, we've been taking a really good look at our community investment programs and looking for opportunities. So if I move on to the next slide, this really is the highlights of that are included in our sustainability report.
I just wanted to call out 3 of them, which have been particularly good achievements over the past 6 months. On the social side, we've continued to have very Strong performance in local employment and procurement, which is really what drives our contribution to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8 of decent work Economic growth. We remain at around 95% of our workforce as national or local, and the value of our local procurement has increased slightly over the past 6 months to around 81%, which is really good achievement. On environment, we're continuing to have good performance Fair with, the key thing to call out is that our emissions intensity greenhouse gas emissions intensity has come down from the last reporting period As gold production from our Yarrow mine has ramped up. On governance, we commenced external assurance on our sustainability data with limited assurance By price water house creepers on our safety data this year.
This is a really, really good first step of us All assuring our sustainability data, and we intend to have all of our data annually assured by the end of financial year 'twenty three. We also had our World Gold Council Responsible Gold Mining Principle Statement of Conformance assured by PricewaterhouseCoopers As we continue on our path to achieving alignment with the principles by the end of financial year 'twenty three. So moving now on to performance and specifically safety performance. Our total recordable injury frequency rate and lost time injury The frequency rate did increase year on year, and there's been a range of factors with one of them being, Yara entering operations and having new at that site. And this month, we've kicked off a safety improvement program across our sites where we'll be working on our safety culture, Leadership and our Critical Control framework to ensure that we can continue to deliver and drive year on year improvements in this space.
It's also worth calling out that we have reduced our total reportable injury frequency rate by around 20% from FY 2019, But we will be putting extra effort in this space to drive improvement and get us on the path to achieving our overarching objectives, which is, 0 harm, of course. Moving on to Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Water, our environmental performance. As I mentioned, our emissions intensity has reduced since the last reporting period with Yara production ramping up. Of course, our emissions have also increased with an additional mine coming into the portfolio, and we've started looking at ways to address our emissions. We kicked off a power study for Yara to look at different power alternatives, including consideration of renewables.
Part of this is looking at the benefits of continuing with our current arrangements from the group, which already include a good proportion of renewables in Cote d'Ivoire and also looking at how that energy mix is changing over time. We'll be further working through this through financial year 2022. Odd order, our intensity there has also decreased with Yara coming online. On our social performance, In addition to our strong achievements in local employment and procurement, we've made some gains this past reporting period On the proportion of women employees in our business rising to now nearly around 15%. And of course, with our activity and revenue increasing With Yara coming into production, accordingly, our community contributions have significantly increased to around 2,100,000.
We continue to engage closely with our communities on a range of issues, and, we're looking, as I said, at our community investment Just on our alignment to the World Gold Council Responsible Gold Mining Principles. As I mentioned earlier, a key part of improving our governance is adopting Responsible Gold Mining principles. A critical step in this has been clear and accurate of our starting position. We had our statement of conformance externally assured this year by PricewaterhouseCoopers. And as a result, we did revise where we were at With each of the principles, as you can see here, this analysis and where we're at is informing our FY2223 work plans, Where we'll be putting extra focus on systems and processes associated with our supply chain, human and labor rights, And as I've also mentioned previously on water and emissions.
Another key element of our report this year is we've started to articulate our 3 year sustainability roadmap. It's safe to say that we'll continue to work on this through financial year 'twenty two to get stronger definition, but really our efforts in sustainability has 2 dual objectives, And it's around protecting financial value of our business and also growing our social value guided by the United Nations' sustainable development goals. For us, this is all about ESG integration and our journey to reach maturity in this integration is shown on the figure on the left here. And some key initiatives to get us there include further working on our risk and opportunity management, the World Gold Council responsible gold mining principles and governance over our data and social performance and strategic social investment. As I said, a key area is how we're looking at How we can amplify our social value and really use our strong foundation to maximize the benefits we bring to our communities, Supporting them to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and we see this as our biggest opportunity.
So moving on to our FY24 goals, we started to define what our goals look like, but it's safe to say we'll continue to work on this through financial To year 22 to get more definition. Key areas for us are our safety performance, with our goal of no fatalities, Continued goal of no fatalities and really making progress towards our 0 harm objective. Also social performance and responsible sourcing, efficiency. So to wrap up, I hope this has given you a clear picture of where Per CS is at with sustainability, our approach And our performance and where we're heading. The foundation has been built by the business, and it's very strong.
I look forward to updating you as we build on this in the coming years. And now I'm open to your questions.
Jess, you would like to ask a question, please enter it into the Q and A panel within Zoom. Your first question comes from Andrew Livy at Bell Potter. You are, he's just asked, what are your main focus areas for the upcoming financial year?
Thanks. Thank you. The key focus areas for us is really guided by achieving alignment with the responsible gold mining principles and our And focusing on our supply chain, human rights, and also water and energy Missions and Discharges opportunities, as well as just in general strengthening our governance, our systems and processes And building that consistency across our portfolio, so that we can really drive improvement in performance across our key material issues.
Thank you. And we've just had a question following on from that. It's asked, What are your next immediate steps with aligning to the World Gold Council Responsible Gold Mining Principles?
The key things for us at the moment is really looking at our systems and processes, our policies and standards to make sure that it covers all of the principles comprehensively. And also, then it's all about implementation and building the capability on our sites for our teams to align to those Ability on our sites for our teams to align to those principles and deliver. I think in general, we're starting out in not a bad place. It's We've got pretty good alignment already, but there are some key areas that we need to work on, and they're the areas that I mentioned before. But I think for us, it's been a really positive thing to look at what does best practice in the gold mining industry look like In terms of sustainability and look at where we're at and then identify the gaps and it's been a really positive journey so far.
So, I think everyone's on board with working on those key areas, and I have all confidence that we'll get there for FY23.
And another question come in, which is, what were the main community projects completed in FY 'twenty one.
The main projects where we spend Most of our community programs historically, we've spent a lot of time building the social infrastructure an active community, so that's helping to build schools, helping to build medical facilities, and community facilities. And our focus has really shifted or started to shift in making sure that we've got also the facilities to house the professionals to come and work in those Facilities are building, in Cote d'Ivoire, it's been on building housing for teachers to make sure that they can attract and retain Good quality teachers to our areas of operation and our communities. And similarly, at Edikan in Ghana, There's been construction of nurses' quarters and teachers' quarters to really attract the professionals to those regions. But there has been also some livelihood programs. We kicked off a pig farming Pilot program in Ghana, which is looking at how we can support farmers into different alternative livelihoods, which are profitable, As well as some capacity building projects in training and truck driving for the mining industry.
So We are definitely starting to see that shift from construction of community infrastructure into more Good programs and really supporting our communities, on the UN Sustainable Development Goals beyond infrastructure
There are no further questions at this time, so I'll now hand back to Jeff for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thanks, Nathan. And I think you could see from Jessica's presentation that this has been an area that Perseus has put a lot of effort into in recent times and we are starting to deliver results. At the same time as we're doing this, of course, we are focusing Very heavily on our the rest of the business and this Thursday we'll be publishing our September quarter report. Without disclosing the details of that, what you will see from that document when it comes out that the Very good and strong performance in the sustainability area is certainly mirrored and then some in the production and growth So all in all, Perseus is maturing as a business.
We are starting to deliver very consistent and So, thank you very much for your attendance today. And in the future, if anything has triggered a question today that you'd like to explore further, Jess is certainly available At all times to engage with you to go into a little bit more detail in some of these areas, she can be contacted either directly on the phone or email or you can contact me as well. So please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything that hasn't