Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, and thank you for joining us this afternoon. It is great to see so much interest in our first sustainability performance update of the year, during which we will update you on our progress towards achieving our broad set of sustainability ambitions, which are integral to our strategy and decision-making. The order of play. Today is a Duncan and Anik duet. After talking about progress on our key sustainability metrics, Duncan will update you on our climate change work during 2022, and our priorities for this year. I will then take you through some of the work we are progressing in the social impact space before Duncan wraps things up by illustrating how we apply our integrated approach in delivering outcomes that support a more sustainable future.
Fear not, we also have Stephen, our Finance Director, as well as our Technical Director, Matthew Daley, both eagerly waiting in the wings, ready to respond to all of your difficult questions. Duncan, over to you.
Thanks very much, Anik, and welcome everybody. As always, good to speak to you again, and thanks for joining us this afternoon. Safety, as always, must come first and it will do so in this presentation too. We strive every day to create a workplace where no one can get hurt. While we've seen, you know, some very happy and good progress in terms of the continued stabilization of the performance in our operations from both a safety and a production perspective through the end of last year and on into the beginning of this year, we did tragically suffer a fatality at our Kumba operations in South Africa in February of this year.
I think this is a very, very much a stark reminder to all of us that unless we at all times remain unconditional about safety, then accidents are going to happen. Our response to this has embraced three large or broad aspects. Firstly, that started out last year again with an urgent reset, and calls to action across the whole of our business. We started or instigated those during the second half of last year. Secondly, also our work to improve the operational stability through our discipline of implementing and sticking to our operating model, and I believe that this is absolutely key, not only to better and more effective production outcomes, but to safer outcomes in terms of the employees.
Finally, a much broader approach which seeks to alter the collective mindset of the people in our organization. This is to do. This is to ensure that people are much more confident and much more aware of the unsafe situations that they may be putting themselves or others in, and therefore feeling confident to be able to speak up in dealing with those situations. We are focusing very much on increasing the ability for our leadership to spend time in the field, and that time will help build a more safe and a more inclusive culture.
Where we can, of course, we will continue to apply technology, and technological solutions to ensure that everybody can leave work in the same way that they arrived at work in the morning, safe and sure that they will maintain their health and their focus, not only at work, but for their families too. Now I'm gonna move on, and talk a little bit about our Sustainable Mining Plan and how it integrates with our strategy. You'll be very familiar now with our purpose and the strategic context within which we frame that purpose. I'd like to reiterate the fact that our approach to sustainability here is very much at the heart of our business strategy.
Our Sustainable Mining Plan, we call it SMP for short, is designed to deliver outcomes that are aligned with our purpose. This purpose of reimagining mining to improve people's lives, therefore deliver enduring value in many different forms to a wide and a broad range of our stakeholders. We're gonna touch on a couple of those elements from different stakeholders' perspectives in our presentation today. The three pillars of our Sustainable Mining Plan include goals that are aligned to 12 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. These are the ones that we felt that we could more positively contribute to, and these goals are embedded into our business planning at a very granular level.
In the same way we think about putting production plans and cost plans into our objectives and into our business plans, so do we think about putting our sustainability goals and targets into those plans in a very integrated sort of way. We think that this is absolutely critical to turning the ambitions that we have of being a sustainable mining company and a leader in this space into real and tangible outcomes. We hold ourselves to account for this too, by the way. This is very much part of the leadership remuneration. 20% or so is weighted to ESG measures and our performance against these targets and goals that we set on our journey. Finally, we continue to review these goals and we want to be sure that they remain relevant.
Of course, this is a very dynamic and fast-changing space. There's, you know, there's more and more transparency that's coming to this globally, and we want to be sure that we play our part in bringing that transparency to bear. Also, at the same time ensuring that what we are doing remains relevant to our employees, to our stakeholders, both our shareholders and our civil society stakeholders. Right now, we are broadly comfortable that the set of goals that we have should stand, and we will continue to evolve them as needed over time. Of course, we'll provide more updates to this for later on in the year.
We've highlighted on the slide where we'd like to focus the presentation today. I'm going to move on and talk a little bit about the Healthy Environment part of our sustainable development journey. Our Healthy Environment goals are across many areas, but the ones to focus on are areas of emissions, water, and biodiversity. In all cases, the journey towards our goals is going to take a bit of time. The improvements that we make in executing against these programs is clearly not going to be linear, as I'm going to point out to you in the next few slides too.
We will continue to give regular and transparent updates on our progress and in particular, on our performance against targets, emissions targets in particular, even if there isn't a whole lot of new news to talk about at the time we give the updates. Moving on and having a look at the key components of our environmental performance, this slide clearly shows that progress isn't linear. One example of that is on water unit usage, particularly in our water-scarce regions. We can show that we are now currently 26% below our baseline that we described for ourself, for water usage back in 2015. Halfway now to our target of a 50% reduction in water use and abstraction.
You can see that these decreases in the past few years have sort of plateaued out, have become a little bit more gradual. Now, the latest improvements in our performance were due to the significant increases in efficiency at both Amandelbult and Venetia mines. These sites achieved this by improving their water reuse and recycling rates, and therefore reducing their reliance on the abstraction of fresh water. This focus on efficiency is continuing at all of our operations throughout 2023, and I think we will continue to see improvements in this regard, and in fact, at latest count, probably slightly ahead of our own trajectory, or our planned trajectory.
Now, reaching this target of a 50% reduction is clearly going to require a much bigger step that is embodied by efficiency improvements that I've been speaking about now. I think I'd like to touch on that, you know, examples of what these big steps of improvement might be through a little bit of a case study later on in the presentation when I talk about the Los Bronces Integrated Water Security Project that we've just instigated. Now, looking at the greenhouse gas emissions and our energy usage, of course, these are two very interlinked elements. Since 2019, our Scope one and Scope two emissions have been on a downward trajectory.
In 2022, our improvement reflected the transition from Grasstree to the less gassy Aquila in our steelmaking coal business, and that served to reduce our Scope one methane emissions, as well as our growing proportion of renewable electricity and the contracts that have come to bear across most of our South American operations, kicking in in stages over the last few years. There is also a linkage, I have to say, to production volumes here, and we may see a slight lessening of the rate of improvement here over the next few years as the production levels start to increase in the short term. Now, on energy consumption, this of course affects our Scope two emissions as well.
In absolute terms, we saw a small improvement this year. This was despite the fact that we brought Quellaveco on stream. It's largely a reflection of low production in our PGM businesses, to be fair. Also, importantly, our proportion of energy drawn from renewable sources continues to increase. That keeps us at the forefront of this program. Currently, 52% of our electricity used and 25% of our total energy is now from renewable sources. Quellaveco's renewable energy contracts kick in during this year, 2023. That will take us all the way up to 100% renewables in South America. From our Australian steelmaking coal operations, we will transition there to renewable energy contracts from 2025.
Playing our part in helping to address climate change is clearly a central part of our strategy and our sustainability objectives. As I've said before, this is not going to be a straight line in terms of progression, but we're gonna continue updating you in terms of our progress and our pathway to meet our objectives. Our progress in the past year or so was centered on three core categories. Firstly, our renewable energy for work principally addresses our Scope two emissions, which largely arise from our Southern African electrical supply, as well as globally, our reliance on diesel in the haulage of our product in and around the mines.
As planned, we entered into the Envusa Energy Partnership with EDF Renewables and announced the first 600 MW of wind and solar projects as part of a larger 3-5 GW program over the next decade. We've already agreed commercial terms for two wind sites of 140 MW each, one solar site of 200 MW in the Eastern Cape. In addition to that, we have two behind-the-meter operations, both solar sites at our mine, Sishen and Mogalakwena. At Sishen, that's a 70 MW photovoltaic installation, is now undergoing already some work in terms of site stabilization and the pre-development of construction activities. The plan is to close financially on this project in the next quarter or so, and then launch full construction by quarter four of this year.
Similarly too, Mogalakwena, where we have 130 MW behind the meter, is on the way to financial close, and we expect to start construction on that project in the fourth quarter of this year too. Of course, we have a much larger portfolio of energy projects in the development pipeline, and that's going to follow this first wave. Next year, all being well, I'm hoping to show you a couple of pictures of some of these projects in construction that should be coming on in 2024 and in 2025. Alongside these, as you know, we've also developed and are now testing the world's largest hydrogen-powered haul truck. At the start of 2023, we combined nuGen, which was our part of this venture, with our partners on the Project First Mode.
The purpose of this was to accelerate the development of this technology and also commercialize this technology more rapidly than we would be able to do all on our own. The second category of our emissions that really bears a lot of attention is that of methane from our steelmaking coal operations. This would very much, with diesel and electricity in Southern Africa, be the largest component of our Scope one emissions today. We now already capture around 60% of the methane from our steelmaking coal mines, and we actually use that methane to generate electricity for the local region. A total of about 100 MW of energy-making capacity is available for use from this captured methane. The remaining 40%, which is much lower in concentration, is the next focus area for us.
Initial concept studies have already commenced, and are starting to now identify the best approaches for this VAM abatement, so vent and methane abatement, as well as methane emissions reduction. We're working very closely with some new technology vendors and engineering partners to progress from pre-feasibility, where we are now, to feasibility study for VAM abatement project with the design and construction of an industrial unit here for Moranbah, in Australia. This will be the first type of first of its type, and it is intended then, based on the back of the success of that, to then roll out a template for further deployment for the rest of our underground operations in Australia.
Finally, on Scope three, I'm gonna talk a little bit more about Scope three later on in the presentation, is, you know, our wider approach. We have established a pretty big ambition here. Note that this ambition is very much dependent on the decarbonization progress of the steel industry, given its emissions represent two-thirds of our Scope three footprint. Steel industry Scope one and two emissions are our Scope three emissions. And a lot of the change in this space must come from them as well as from us.
For those elements that we have slightly closer to ourselves and under our control, some news here, of course, is that the first two of 10 LNG vessels have now entered service for us on the South Africa to Asia route, we are expected to deliver here a 35% reduction of carbon dioxide compared to conventional marine fuel vessels. Just a couple of weeks ago, we signed a memorandum of understanding with H2 Green Steel. H2 Green Steel is a Swedish hydrogen and steel producer, to work together with them on the advancement of low-carbon steel-making processes using our premium quality iron ore products from both Kumba and from Minas-Rio. What does this journey look like for us in terms of Scope one and Scope two?
This is our pathway in terms of reaching carbon neutrality by 2040. Our Scope one and two emissions are now down 21% since the peak that we saw in 2019 and reflects, I think, a very, the very important progress that we have made on our journey. Although still quite a significant amount of work needs to be done, as you can see, to deliver our 2030 target, which is 30% reduction against 2016 and full carbon neutrality for the whole of the portfolio that we currently have under management by 2040. We'll keep filling in the detail on this chart, and you can see our pathways and, you know, is filled with a number of projects that we are either developing or have in execution.
We'll keep providing the information on how we're progressing on this journey. We now, very pleasingly, have just completed the Stanwell agreements, which will supply renewable energy to all of our Australian operations by 2025. I've spoken a little bit about the first solar and wind PV projects that'll come on stream in South Africa in 2024 and 2025 too. As I have mentioned a little bit earlier, we may see a small uptick on this journey, you know, as we progress towards 2030.
As technology develops, I think we'll then start to see a rapid decline in the emissions as a result of the work that we are doing to A, either develop this technology ourselves or work in partnership with those that are like-minded with us on our journey, and therefore we'll see some progress in the next little while. Additional progress, I mean. On the next slide, I think let's talk a bit more about Scope three and this massive ambition of 50% reduction by 2040.
We've spoken a lot about this ambition, and we've spoken a lot about how we take this ambition and turn it into a set of pathways, very much like I've just described to you for Scope one and Scope two, and then convert those pathways into actionable and executable plans for the Scope three emissions. In 2021, which is our most recent measurement, it takes quite a long time to compile and gather this data today.
Our Scope three emissions were 99 million tons. This was 14% lower than they were in 2020, in part driven by a greater proportion of our sales to low emissions customers, where, as well as lower steelmaking coal volumes, you know, we spend quite a lot of time in ensuring that our solutions work for their solutions on the journey to carbon neutrality for their industry too. We'll continue to work on placing our product with those low emitting customers who tend to be, tend to more highly value the premium product mix that we supply. Of course, I want to be sure that we all understand that we are absolutely in the hands of our customers here, particularly as our steelmaking coal volumes start to increase in the next year or two.
Our latest climate report details the evolution of our Scope three ambition into this pathway, and is underpinned by four core pillars that you see on the slide. The first of those is recognizing the importance of engagement and advocacy, and we will be taking a much more active role in shaping responsible policy and industry initiatives. While Scope three is somebody else's Scope one and two problem, we are not standing back and waiting for that to happen and then working with whatever the consequences that are. We are trying to play a role in shaping that up, that it comes out with the right solutions much faster than it perhaps otherwise would.
Secondly, our product quality and customer strategy are very much aligned, so supporting our customers' decarbonization journeys by being able to tailor our own products, be that coming from our core assets or from our trading activities to their specifications and prioritizing production and sale of our high-quality materials to those who value it the most. That's not just from a financial perspective. Thirdly, through our partnerships to drive decarbonization technology adoption, we are working quite hard with our customers to partner with them and pilot carbon reduction technologies in their businesses. Twenty percent of our iron ore customers are now covered by agreements similar to the 1 that I mentioned a little bit earlier. Finally, we also have now commenced building green businesses or a green business building venture.
This includes funding of startups who are developing and commercializing novel decarbonization technologies through our Decarbonisation Ventures fund. We also launched the Pathways to Steel Decarbonisation Innovation Challenge, and we did that together with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. Given the importance of the steel sector in our value chain, understanding that sector's likely pace of decarbonisation is absolutely critical. More than just understanding it, being able to influence it and work with them in driving it to an outcome that works effectively for all of us is the basis of our thinking. Our base case assumption is that the 2020s will be a decade of transition as far as steel production is concerned.
Actual steel production will probably outpace during this decade, technologically driven reductions in greenhouse gas emissions until around about 2030. Against this backdrop, given our own growth profile and our expectations therefore, are that the sourcing of third-party materials product for ourselves and our customers, we would expect to see our Scope three emissions increase slightly between now and 2030. We estimate that these levers to reduce emissions intensity from our iron ore products from both Kumba and Minas-Rio and our steelmaking coal assets, could reduce our Scope three emissions by as much as 40%-50% from our 2020 baseline by 2040. Further reduction in Scope three for our other products could reduce our emissions by another 10%-15%. These are the pathways that we are now looking to populate with projects.
Finally, before I hand over to Anik, our to-do list for this year, as far as Scope one and Scope two is concerned, is to complete the transition to 100% renewables in our electricity projects in Peru, and we'll hopefully have that done by the middle of this year. It is also to commence construction on the first wave of these wind and solar projects in South Africa, so a lot of the commercial agreements are now already in place. The PPAs are in place, moving very rapidly towards financial close, and selection of the construction partners to get this developed. Start breaking ground on that during the course of this year. Continue also, the concept phase work on nuGen Zero Emission Haulage Solution for both Mogalakwena and Minas-Rio.
As I've mentioned before, start the vent air methane feasibility study for the abatement at Moranbah, which then becomes the basis for the low concentration vent air methane abatement in the rest of our coal business. On Scope three, we will continue to work with our partners, continuing to identify new partners in driving decarbonization across the steel value chain. We expect delivery of the balance of our LNG fleet, so the remaining eight of the 10 vessels that we've invested in over the next two years.
Also on the logistics front, we continue to work very closely with the likes of the Global Maritime Forum and partners such as Tata Steel, Wärtsilä Marine, ENGIE, and the Port of Saldanha, where we hope to develop the first-ever concept for a maritime green corridor for zero emission shipping of iron ore between South Africa and Europe. This is the detail that we'll continue to populate in our program as we progress on our journey to carbon neutralization. In summary, it's clear that there's quite a lot of work for us to do to bring more definition and more shape to these programs. Absolutely, the work that we have and the well-established team that we have in terms of driving solutions here is operating at 110%.
With that, I'm going to hand over now to Anik, who's going to take us through another dimension of our Sustainable Mining Plan solutions, and the social impact that we have in and around the operations where we operate. Over to you, Anik.
It had to happen. Thanks, Duncan. I have to say that I'm very excited about our LNG ships. In fact, on my upcoming trip to China, I will also be there to christen one of them. When we talk about social impact, we recognize the interdependencies between social performance, broader socioeconomic impacts we have through our supply chains, and our targeted initiatives, and also our culture of promoting inclusion and diversity. Our workforce, our communities, and our regions are all part of an ecosystem that needs to work seamlessly. This is why we are driving performance in this area through some leading financing initiatives. You may remember last year we talked about a $100 million 10-year loan agreement with the IFC. This is linked to the delivery of sustainability goals that are integral to our Sustainable Mining Plan, SMP.
In this case, in South Africa, supporting the partnership we have with government to significantly increase attainment levels in host community schools and supporting three off-site jobs for every on-site job by 2025. Since then, we have also issued our first sustainability link bond, including performance targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fresh water abstractions, and to support job creation in host communities. This was the first by a mining major to include in this type of socioeconomic metric. As this is about keeping you updated on our progress in key areas of sustainability, I'm going to channel my finance director, my inner finance director, and take you through a few graphs and charts. On social performance, we continue to make progress on the implementation of our Social Way 3.0 management system with 66% of foundational requirements implemented and externally assured.
Attaining this level of performance represents a higher bar than any that has been set before in the industry. Let's remind ourselves why that is. It is because it is a whole of site approach to social performance and has community participation at its core. The program is a critical underpin to many of our ambitious 2030 SMP targets, demonstrating our commitment to partnering with our host communities and governments. Alongside this, I'm very proud of the significant economic contribution that we make. Stephen went through this in detail in February, the message I wanna highlight here is that by employing people, paying and collecting taxes in country, and spending money with suppliers, we make a very significant positive contribution to both host communities and their regional and national economies. Most of these are in developing countries, an even greater positive impact.
Thanks to the multiplier effect, our total economic contribution extends far beyond the direct value we add. Part of this economic contribution is procurement in our host countries, which in 2022 was just under $14 billion, over 90% of our total procurement. We ensure that our business operations deliver economic value to communities through our policies on inclusive procurement, local recruitment, and supporting local suppliers. By investing in local suppliers as far as possible, we increase the wealth of the people who live and work in the regions where we operate. We also have a major focus on supporting sustainable employment and economic diversification outside the mining value chain.
For us, this is all part of being a sustainable business, creating value for a far wider range of our stakeholders. Our SMP stretch goals that Duncan mentioned relate to this. Local procurement in particular is central to our livelihoods goal. By the end of 2022, we supported approximately 115,000 jobs through local procurement and socioeconomic development programs since the launch of our plan in 2018. Seventy-seven thousand of these jobs are the result of Anglo American's local procurement activities. Our target is to support five jobs off-site for every on-site job by 2030. By the end of last year, I am proud to say we supported 1.8 off-site jobs for every on-site job in 2022.
Including induced jobs, those created by the spending of our employees and our suppliers' employees, we supported 6.5 off-site jobs for every on-site job. That is over 400,000 jobs. We continue to develop new and innovative approaches to supporting local employment and economic diversification. For example, we are catalyzing impact investment ecosystems in Southern Africa and South America, in which we identify and capacitate entrepreneurs seeking funding and then introduce them to a curated set of impact investors active in those regions. Although this initiative is new, we have already enabled $12 million of investment in two businesses that expect to support over 10,000 jobs. Let me bring some other examples of this to life.
For over 30 years, Zimele, our enterprise capacity-building program in South Africa, has been funding small, medium, and micro enterprises to enable them to participate effectively in the economy. There are currently 813 participants on active programs across all Anglo American sites. Since 2018, Zimele has disbursed $25 million with an excellent 92% loan recovery rate. Our equivalent program in Chile and in Peru, called EMERGE, a collaboration between Anglo American and TechnoServe that works to accelerate micro and small businesses in communities surrounding Anglo American operations. We have supported over 50,000 entrepreneurs and small to medium-based size businesses by providing tailored business mentoring, one-on-one advisory support, online training, and access to finance. We also have Crescer supporting enterprise development in Brazil with some promising impacts on female progression and increasing incomes in the workforce.
Finally, in Botswana and in Zimbabwe, we have Tokafala and Takura projects respectively. Since 2014, the government of Botswana, Debswana, De Beers, and Anglo American have partnered to deliver the Tokafala Enterprise and Youth Development Programme, which is also implemented by TechnoServe. The current Tokafala program applies to targeted value chain approach with the aim of unlocking entrepreneurship in the country while focusing on the inclusion of women and youth in economic activities. It is designed to support selected strategic sectors that are aligned to Botswana's national priorities, mining, manufacturing, including textile manufacturing, agro-processing, and tourism, and drive youth businesses into the target sectors as well.
Since the beginning of the program, Tokafala has strengthened nearly 900 micro and small and medium-sized businesses and has supported over 9,300 jobs and strengthened the capacity of over 800 youth, of whom more than 300 have been placed into employment. Female participation has been 44% among participating enterprises and 69% among youth participating in the program. Participating enterprises have increased revenue significantly, ranging from 21% for medium-sized businesses, 46% for small businesses, and 150% for micro enterprises. In Zimbabwe, where we also partner with our delivery partner, TechnoServe, 600 farmers have been recruited and given training to adopt climate-smart regenerative practices and commercialize their businesses, and 55% of those farmers are women. It's very apt that we now turn to inclusion and diversity.
We continue to make further progress to reach our gender goal of 33% female representation by the end of 2023 at all management levels across the business. While female representation in our most senior management plateaued at the end of 2022 at 29%, it is now 30% as we stand today, with great progress since 2018. As Duncan mentioned earlier, progress is rarely linear. We are approaching this sustainably and appointing individuals with the right skills to do those roles, rather than solely based on gender. It is critical to look at the continued improvement in our female representation at all the management levels, as this is going to enable us to establish robust succession plans with strong and growing female representation.
We have been recognized for this work through the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, as well as being listed as the top 50 employers of women by The Times in London. Of course, inclusion and diversity goes far beyond just gender. We have established an index based on our regular internal employee surveys, which is indicating a positive trend in broader aspects of inclusion and diversity. This reflects our status as one of the top 50 most inclusive companies in the U.K. In 2023, we will continue to build on our established strategic areas of focus and embed the policies and initiatives we put in place in 2022. One important area of focus will be our Stand Up for Everyone initiative, through which we will enhance our emphasis on the eradication of bullying, harassment, victimization, and domestic violence.
Building a safe and inclusive culture is a constant focus for us, and we are going beyond physical safety by helping to create an environment of psychological safety. To complement all of the other work the organization has been doing since 2018, last November we launched our Living with Dignity Hub in South Africa. The hub is an independently managed facility that provides victims of gender-based violence, bullying, harassment, and victimization, whether in the world of work or at home in the form of domestic violence, an independent reporting channel, as well as expert psychosocial and legal support. In our steelmaking coal business in Australia, a similar facility provides an employee-centric trauma response for cases of bullying, harassment, and victimization in the workplace, supported by investigators with very specific skills required for these cases.
We recognize that building a safe and inclusive culture is constant work, and we are committed to listening to our people and other stakeholders that are close to our business every day. We are proud of the initial results that we have seen from the Hub, which handled 139 cases since opening and establishing itself as the place to get help when it is most needed. Anglo American has implemented the Hub as a pilot concept, which we hope to implement more widely across the business. Thinking more broadly about an inclusive workplace for all, we are also committed to ensuring that every employee at Anglo American earns a fair wage. I am proud to share that we have secured a living wage accreditation that formally recognizes Anglo American's status as a committed global living wage employer.
Anglo American is the first mining company to reach this milestone. Beyond the mining sector, Anglo American is the third company in the world to be living wage globally accredited by the Fair Wage Network. This is a real and important progress and has such a bearing on the culture we are encouraging and the engagement of our workforce. Duncan, back to you.
Thank you, Anik. Look, back to, back to what I started speaking about a bit earlier in terms of the big integrated steps that we take in approaching sustainability. And in my wrap-up today, I'd like to just bring to life an example of what we were speaking about at Los Bronces. Now, you'll know that at Los Bronces we currently rely on more than six external sources of water that served us or service us through the prolonged drought that we are experiencing in central Chile. Now, I think these are the sorts of challenges that we can expect to see impact businesses for the foreseeable future. And our longer term response here has embodied and embraced sort of three elements.
The first of those, and the second of those being things that we spoke about a little bit earlier, you know, our focus on recycling and reduction in terms of the use of water. At Los Bronces, we now currently recycle more than 85% of our water. Same time, we continue to work on new various initiatives and the application of new technologies, so things like coarse particle flotation, and dry stack tailings, et cetera, to reduce the use of water. Most importantly, I think, we're going to have to think more holistically about how we create value in the round. Both of these steps are very, very valuable for our regional stakeholders, I have to say.
We continue to convert, our use of fresh water for the beneficial use of communities and therefore continue to increase their supply of water. In the long run, we came up with this concept with our partners of a two-stage integrated water security project, and I think this is a great example of how we can deliver win-win outcomes if we approach these challenges more holistically. The slide that you can see up today sort of shows the interim solution, the first of two stages of what this might look like. We entered into an offtake agreement to source desalinated water with the necessary infrastructure that can then supply Los Bronces. This will reduce our reliance on the use of fresh water consumption by more than 45%.
That also then allows us, by the diversion in terms of the reapplication of this water, to provide rural and potable water systems for our host communities into those pipelines that will benefit approximately 20,000 people from day one. As we go into the second stage of this thing, we would aim to exchange that desalinated water for treated wastewater. The idea here is we take, you know, 1 L of the desalinated water, exchange it for 2 L of grey water, which is basically treated water from the city of Santiago. The consequence of that would be the water we liberate from our own use in application would benefit about 1 million people in that local region.
That is absolutely a long-term solution for Los Bronces that allows us to secure the future production levels of that mine and contribute very significantly to our group's 2030 freshwater reduction targets at a much lower unit cost. This is how it genuinely becomes win-win. Today, you know, the water sourcing strategy that we have and the multiple sources that we have to rely on, which by the way, are in and of themselves not terribly reliable, costs us around about $0.30 lb of copper. This solution, when fully implemented, will only cost $0.10 lb of copper. Not only do communities, 1 million more people get benefit of less use and application of fresh water to the mining process, but of course, the cost of providing security and benefit to the mine goes down quite significantly too.
I think, you know, we do like to think beyond the mine gate and consider our role in catalyzing this positive change in our host communities and the broader ecosystems around us. This is what I think integrated sustainability really does look like. We believe that this is simply the right thing to do, but not least, because of just improving the production situation and the water security around mine operations, but because it has the possibility of improving people's lives too. We're very proud of the work that the team has done, which leads the industry down this path, and I believe that we can deliver more innovative solutions like this across a great range of opportunities in the business. Just moving to my last slide now.
We prioritize all of these things that you've heard about today, not just because they are the right things to do, but they are absolutely vital if our geographically diverse portfolio is going to be able to supply the metals and the minerals that are so desperately needed, into the two major future demand trends that we think are becoming ever clearer. The first of those trends is decarbonization of our energy and transport solutions for the world. That would then help us get to this cleaner, greener, and a more sustainable world that we all want to live in. Secondly, to the, you know, the broader drive to improving people's living standards and for a growing and urbanizing population. This means demand for everything from homes and electronics to food and consumer goods.
In meeting this demand, I think it is absolutely incumbent on those of us that deliver these metals and minerals to do so sustainably as possible. We know that we need in the order of 60 more Quellavecos to meet just simply copper demand to match the energy transition requirements. These, you know, this is going to need to be mined by whoever does it in a sustainable and a responsible way. While we are making good progress, we certainly do recognize the need to maintain our momentum and work very hard over the coming years to convert all of these pathways that we've scoped up into actual projects that deliver the outcomes. With that, I'd like to hand over to Paul, who will curate the questions for us. Thank you.
Thanks, Duncan. Afternoon all. If you wish to ask a question, you can see the telephone number on the screen. Please do dial into that, then press star one, as normal course, you'll be placed in the queue. Before I hand over to the operator, his name is Jack, a friendly reminder just to keep your question reasonably concise into one or two or three parts. We'll do our best to get through as many as we can. With that, Jack, over to you to introduce the first question, if I may. We've got Duncan and Anik. As Anik said, joining us for the Q&A, we have Stephen and Matt as well. Jack.
If you'd like to ask a question via phone, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Danielle Chigumira with Credit Suisse, your line is open.
Great. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just two to start. Firstly, on methane emissions. On your slide nine, you have a slight increase in 2023 when Met Coal guidance is for a 17% YoY increase. In 2024, you have flat methane emissions when the guidance for production is up 20% YoY. How can I make sense of those two dynamics, both flattening methane emissions with growing production?
Danielle, thanks very much for the question, and I'll hand over to Matt for a bit of the detail on that. Really what it does do is reflect the work that's already in train as far as methane management in those businesses. Much of it is around draining the seam as early as possible. And the rest of it is then about capturing that gas and utilizing that gas rather than just emitting it. Capturing it is one thing. What you do with it is something else, and I think that the team has put a lot of processes in place all the way from just simply flaring to the conversion of the use of that gas to electricity.
Some of that is playing through into the rising production as it stands today. Matt, do you want to provide a little bit more detail on the program of works for Venetia methane emissions elimination, please?
Certainly can, Duncan. Looking into the longer term, we've certainly chosen technology for Venetia methane called RTO. It's a thermal oxidation process, which is looking at converting methane into both carbon dioxide and water vapor. Obviously, a much better product around for global warming. In the near term, what we're seeing is much better and efficient capture of venting gases at the moment. Year to date, we're actually seeing a 30% reduction in our emissions, even though we have higher production on the back of much better efficiency of capture around venting and how we're using our flaring systems. This is leading to that reduction we're hoping to see, or we are gonna see through 2024 and into 2025 when we have our Venetia methane projects come online.
That's super useful color. Thank you. Turning to the commodity mix. On your slide 20, you've got, the new label is a bit broader, but does Anglo have a long-term ambitions to grow in the minerals which more directly aid decarbonization like copper and nickel? Would you consider non-organic options for this? Do you consider zinc, in particular, to be a metal aligned with those future demand themes?
Sure, Danielle. I mean, I've said before and I'll reiterate it now, you know, the future of this business and any of the projects that we consider all get captured by the same process and the same thinking in terms of how we allocate capital for value. I mean, we're very fortunate to have a number of organic projects across the piece in those commodity suites that you see there. But that doesn't mean that we would be exclusively committed to these commodities at the expense of anything else that comes up. We do absolutely look for inorganic opportunities and have done for several years.
You can see by the acquisition of the polyhalite and our Crop Nutrients business that we created. We will continue to think through what's available and where it fits and works for us. The rules of the game stay absolutely the same in terms of how we would think about allocating capital to it. Specifically, would we or would we not consider zinc? I mean, I think we by and large, up until a couple of years ago, might have suggested that we would be completely commodity agnostic. That's no longer true, right? I mean, I don't think you're ever going to see us going back into thermal coal, for instance.
Therefore, you know, it would be a function of whether, one, we like the commodity in terms of the structure and nature of the market. Importantly, whether we were able to deliver something into that business that was unique and exceptional, building on our own parent, and operational capabilities to that business. Zinc would absolutely be within the suite of things that we might look at in the future. There isn't anything like that on the books at the moment.
Thank you. I would join the queue.
Sylvain Brunet with BNP Paribas. Your line is open.
Good afternoon, Duncan. You good morning.
Hi, Sylvain.
First, first question is sticking with the coal and coking coal exposure on your side. Is there any change of heart? I know in the past you said it would be more longer term, and I fully appreciate that. There'll be some decades probably before the steel industry could widely embrace hydrogen technologies. At the time, we're seeing more coal separations in the market. Is that, I don't know, re-kicking the thinking there would be my first question.
Yeah. Sylvain, you know, we really haven't changed our views that we expressed in the last couple of years related to this. Fundamentally, the world is going to require steel if it's going to effectively manage a transition in terms of this energy mix over time. Everything that we know about steelmaking capabilities and capacities in the world would suggest that the transition in that industry is more likely to be sort of 10-15 years away than immediate.
If the world is going to be able to manage this transition and is still going to require coal and iron ore to be able to do that, then certainly those products that are higher quality products such as those that you find at, you know, at Sishen, Minas-Rio and through our steelmaking coal businesses, are going to be very impactful in managing that journey to carbon neutrality over that period of time, sort of 10-15 years. During that course, I mean, we sincerely believe that we are very good stewards of those assets. And that those assets have a very important role to play in the journey to carbon neutral for the world.
No change in heart, or our philosophy as far as that is concerned at the moment.
Okay. My second question, if I may, Duncan, is on safety. I know these are continuing efforts, but is there an equivalent to-do list in your on your agenda on safety for 2023? A number of things you'd like to see completed before year-end?
Yeah. Yes. Yes, there absolutely is. Again, I'll sort of turn to Matt to add some of the color to this. We have a pretty comprehensive elimination of fatalities program that we are very well advanced on, which includes not only just the application of the operating model, which I think has to be the fundamental basis for any safety performance in the business at all. Yeah. That rarely does rely on, you know, ensuring that we plan the work correctly and then execute the work against the plan. In so doing, you've got a lot more time to evaluate the risk in the work, and therefore prepare yourself to safely execute the work. We've spoken a lot about the induced instability that existed in the business.
Very pleased to say that, you know, we are starting to see much more stability in our outcomes because of the renewed focus on this planning post the COVID era. At the same time, you know, there are a number of technologies that we are continuing to implement and accelerate the implementation of.
You know, the idea that we would try and eradicate, you know, human to machine interfaces, whether they're static machines or mobile machines, the measures that we deploy in terms of fatigue management within the operations and so on, these are all technical solutions, as well as automation of certain processes and trucks, drill rigs, et cetera, have all been part of the process and are all getting to the point where, you know, they are coming up the maturity curve, which will be really helpful. The biggest program that we have on the to-do list this year is working with our contractor partners. So much of the workforce is or much of the work in the company is delivered by contractors.
Getting an aligned program of works and alignment in terms of operating model with these partners is very important and is a very big part of the program that Matt is driving during the course of this year on behalf of the group. Matt, is there anything else you'd like to add and color in on the to-do list for 2023 as far as elimination of fatalities is concerned?
Thanks, Duncan. I think you gave a really good summary. For us, we believe we've got the right program in place. It's all about staying the course now, ensuring we've got the right focus on supervision, and really empowering our workforce to feel like they can take the right decisions to look after themselves and the safety of their colleagues and workmates. Stay the course, double down, planning the right execution. Big focus, as Duncan mentioned, around our contract management, recognizing that they are 100% part of our workforce and empowering them in the same way we empower our own people. Yeah, that's a really good summary, I think, Duncan.
Thanks, Matt.
Thanks. Thanks so much.
If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Myles Allsop with UBS, your line is open.
Great. Thank you very much. Maybe three quick questions. First of all, could you give us an update on the Debswana joint venture? Obviously, it's a very important stakeholder and if President Masisi follows through some of these these noises, then clearly there's a material risk to the value of De Beers. Maybe a quick update on when we should expect some clarity with the new 10-year sales agreement and the mine license extensions.
Myles, thanks. Thanks for the question. As I mentioned in February, Botswana remains a really, really important stakeholder to Anglo American and to De Beers in particular, as I think does De Beers to Botswana. We are in a negotiation at this particular point in time, and that negotiation will be, you know, will be hard managed by both sides. You know, I'm fine, absolutely fine, pleased with the progress that Al and the team are making in this regard, and we are absolutely focused on coming up with appropriate and the right solutions for both parties to win coming out of this thing. You know, it's going to take a bit of time to get there.
You know, we are targeting in and around the middle of the year, but the most important thing is to come up with the right agreement for both parties, and we remain very focused on that.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. Then, maybe on the Los Bronces water project, how much of this is actually locked in, and when will we see the benefit in terms of Los Bronces unit cost coming through? Is it, and just to be clear, is it $0.50 down to $0.10 or $0.15? I forget what you were saying earlier.
Yeah, $0.30 down to $0.10. So Stephen will probably have the exact numbers on this thing. In terms of how much of it is locked in, so phase one of it is absolutely locked in. That will start to be implemented from 2024 onwards. Phase two, which is currently in negotiation, so that's the swap of the desalinated water with the gray water. We are looking, hopefully all things going well with the agreements to complete by about 2027. Around about, yeah, in 2027, I think you'll see them, that material reduction in the operating cost. Stephen, do you want to just clarify and color that in, please?
You have absolutely nailed it, Duncan, both on timing stages and reduction in the cost of water, $0.30-$0.10. Correct.
Okay. Very good.
Okay. Maybe one last question for Stephen. On the tax, obviously, there's pressures all around the world, whether it's Queensland or Chile, with tax take going up. How are you thinking about, you know, sort of the effective tax rate over the next few years? How big a step up are we likely to see, and where are we with that sort of negotiation in Chile?
I mean, we have seen that trend generally, Myles, as you're aware, across a number of the jurisdictions that we've operated in, and obviously similarly in ones that we don't. As countries and sovereign states try to rebalance the books, particularly post-pandemic, get a better balance in some of the social structures, obviously they approach industries that generate large tax contributions in their economies. In mining and developing countries, obviously that tends to fall to the mining industry. Most of the countries engage very well in that process. Chile is a great example where they have engaged very well with industry. I'd like to think we're getting closer to a sensible resolution in that space, so, you know, reasonably comfortable with how that's gone.
In terms of then our effective tax rate, I mean, clearly if tax rates go up, then our effective tax rate would rise. A big factor in our effective tax rate in any given year is that mix of profits, and where those profits are generated from which countries, which commodities, et cetera. If I had to generalize, it's probably an overall increase of sort of 2%-3% over the next year or two, as some of those increases and step up in rates take effect.
That's helpful. Thank you.
We do have a follow-up question from Danielle Chigumira with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you. Just a question around the Scope three emissions. Could you give a bit more color in terms of why they're reported with a lag, especially given we know there is another peer that has both iron ore and Met Coal operations. Just in terms of the detail, there's been a drastic reduction in the category use of sold product. What methodology changes have we seen there, and what would Scope three emissions look like without those methodology changes?
Danielle, I might turn to Anik to help me out on the second element of this. The first element in terms of the time it takes to collect the data is just really a function of our systems being able to effectively pick up the data at source. Therefore without any scrubbing, allow us to rely on it. Those systems are developing really rather rapidly, so we are getting better at this over time. There's nothing too much to worry about there, I don't think. That's just a maturity of how data is collected and managed. We have a lot of work to do generally in terms of the management of non-financial data.
In terms of, in terms of the use in customers, I mean, I don't think this is a drastic use in customers. I mean, our customers generally have a very aligned philosophy with us, right? I mean, this is important to us because it's our Scope three emissions, but it's kind of existential for them depending on where they are because it's their Scope on and 2 emissions. We've always said that where it's possible, you know, we would, we would take our production, and we're relatively advantaged 'cause we have, you know, comparatively smaller amounts of the materials just based on the portfolio that we have, and allocate that material more effectively to those customers in those areas that are making the greatest progress.
We're finding that it is true that in those areas, these customers generally do value the material more because, as I said, the application of it to their journey is helpful from the total quantum of carbons emitted in the production of a ton of steel. Yeah, I think the reality is this is hard. You know, this is a tough space. So it's genuinely a very hard-to-abate industry. I think everybody's kind of clear that the outcome here is a complete change in steelmaking productive capacity, right? So you've got to...
You've either got to apply carbon capture use and/or sequestration to the current steelmaking process, which is blast furnace, basic oxygen furnace, or through a number of intermediate steps, you've got to kind of convert the steelmaking process to something like EAF production, that uses in the main something other than metallurgical coal as a reductant, and predominantly utilizes scrap steel as the, as the primary feed to that steelmaking process. The reality is that as you look across the world, there is a variation in the availability of scrap steel as a supply into that process in the first instance.
Secondly, you know, this, the notion that various steel makers are able to instantaneously without policy support, you know, in the form of carbon pricing or in the form of some form of subsidization, et cetera, et cetera, instantaneously invest the capital required to make the process changes, it just doesn't stack up, right? This is why we think it's going to take, sort of 10-15 years to get there.
The reality is that there are more people, particularly those in Europe and the US, that seem much more incentivized to take the type of products that we produce and then help them drive, you know, a journey that describes a process around these sorts of products, or perhaps comes up with the wraparound technologies in terms of capture and sequestration. Look, I mean, I think what you're seeing is as we get firmer and firmer and firmer on what these technologies are and what these outcomes are and who our partners are going to be, you're seeing that sort of reflected in how we report over time. That's what we promise you to be at least, is transparent, right?
I mean, if there are no solutions, then these things don't have a place in our portfolio. If you think about this in the round, you know, there's a lot of time, a lot of water to flow under this bridge, a lot of money that's going into technology and technology development that ultimately does provide those solutions. We are participating it, both as a driver and a recipient of it. Anik, did you want to just add anything about the marketing elements of it, please?
Well, I think the question, the last part of the question was actually on the methodology. Whilst I'm not gonna go into details on the updated methodology, and Danielle, very happy to set up a meeting with our subject matter experts. In... We, our 50% target is actually quite aligned to the updated methodology. That is the key message. A standard Scope 3 methodology for mining, I think a lot of people, stakeholders and investors alike, are recognizing that this is quite challenging.
Okay. Sorry. Thanks, Anik. Sorry, Danielle. I might have gone off on a complete tangent there, based on your question. I mean yes. The greenhouse gas protocols that inform the technology, I mean the measurement mechanism for this thing, is very interpretable. We spent a lot of time, you know, understanding how we have done it in the past, what is appropriate, in the future, how others are doing it. Of course, there is a very big drive through the ICMM at the moment to get to a point where there is a standardized form of interpretation of these sorts of things for mining, and therefore a much more transparent reporting out of it.
We did provide a very, very detailed analysis of our interpretation of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol protocols, which form the measure of our, of our Scope three emissions, and the application of them to us as a business going forward. Where we did have changes, you know, we've provided a sort of a balance sheet of, you know, what the old interpretation is versus a new interpretation. You can see where that's been. It really was because the space is developing so fast, you know, and looking to standardize, we wanted to keep abreast of it and stay apace with it all.
Thank you. That's all super useful. I just have one follow-up on Los Bronces. Even after, if I understand correctly, and I'm sure you'll correct me if not, but even after the phase two swap, that would give enough water for the current footprint of Los Bronces, as in excluding the LVIP, which was approved recently in terms of that environmental approval.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Yeah. Just to confirm that the on implementation of phase two, we would have enough water security for the development plans associated with the environmental approvals that we received overnight for Los Bronces. The entire life of mine plan as we see it today, about 90% of that would be covered by independent supply of water. You know, which is a really robust situation for any mine in that region.
Great. That answers my question. Thank you.
The next question.
We have one email question.
Oh, certainly. I'll turn the call over to Paul.
Yeah. Sorry. Duncan, got two questions from Campbell Parry at Investec Wealth & Investment. First question, I'll give you both of them. First question, where are you on tailings management? An update there. The second one, do you see a need to revise the carbon price you use to inform future strategies brackets $10-$60 a ton?
Okay, very good. Matt's going to tell you about where we are on the tailings management program. Stephen's going to tell you about carbon price. Matt, you first, then Stephen.
Hi, Matt.
Thanks. Thanks, Duncan, and thanks for the question. An update on tailings. Both Anglo's high internal standards and the GISTM strive to achieve the goal of zero harm to people and the environment. Requires us to take responsibility through all phases of facility's life cycle, including closure and post-closure. Current progress, well, we've conducted a self-assessment against the 77 conformance requirements of the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, GISTM. Now we're actively tracking progress against our defined actions to close any gaps. Now, these measures have allowed us to identify areas of non-conformance and develop all those plans to address them through the remainder of this year. Just wanna confirm that we'll be disclosing in line with the TNFD requirements in August this year, exactly where we're sitting against those 77 conformance protocols. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt.
On the carbon price, I mean, clearly, we operate across a number of jurisdictions across the globe, both in developing and developed parts of the world. The approach we take is that where there's a legislated carbon price or path that has been set out in the country, we will use that to the extent it's applicable over time. Where it's not, then, we form our own view, and we generally form that view differentially in the developed versus the developing world. That gives us that range that we disclosed last year. The simpler answer is yes, absolutely.
We will continue to revise our view on carbon price like we would do with commodity price assumptions or FX assumptions, because the world will keep evolving in this space, and so we will evolve our view with it. We often do that on a six-month and annual type basis when we'll sit down and have a look at that, and we're about to literally come into that cycle as we speak. That will inform our views of the carbon prices we use as we go forward. Thanks, Duncan.
Okay, Stephen. I mean, do I think that carbon price needs to adjust materially? I genuinely do at a global level, if we are to achieve the ambitions of Paris, to be perfectly honest with you.
Yeah. Yeah, I think they're going in one direction. Great.
Yep.
We do have a follow-up from Myles Allsop with UBS. Your line is open. Myles, your line is open.
Sorry, I was on mute. Yeah, so listening to your presentation, it's always very impressive in terms of, you know, the progress you're making with operating model, with the safety record, and so on. I suppose there's been a bit of a disconnect over the last 12 months with the actual operating performance and the disappointments that we've seen, you know, at Mogalakwena, at Los Bronces, at kumba, in Met Coal and so on. Do you think, you know, that you're kind of got your arms around those issues, and we've seen the last of the disappointments? That'd be the first question.
Myles, I certainly am not going to disagree with you around the disappointments. They certainly have been. I spent quite a lot of time dissecting, you know, what we thought the fundamental root causes of that were and what we were doing about that in our December and our February presentations. You know, I'll just reiterate that, and hopefully that does give comfort that we do indeed have our arms around it. We have, and we have a specific set of programs that will, you know, seek to ensure that the room for surprises is minimized significantly.
The reality is that, you know, coming out of COVID, there were many disruptions to work processes and procedures, and any operating model relies on you being able to plan your work and then execute against that plan. If we weren't able to execute against our plan, then, you know, you end up with this induced instability and all sorts of reasons. It plays out in things like you don't, you know, you don't develop the mine in accordance with the plan at the rate that you plan to develop the mine at. It plays out in things like, you know, you don't maintain in the way that you plan to maintain. There's different sorts of maintenance impacts that emanate as a result of that.
You don't have the equipment that you thought that you would need at the time that you do your maintenance planning and shutdown because supply chains have changed in the way that they serve us in those sorts of respects. Absolutely, you know, those are things that we had to work out whether, is this our new normal or, you know, will we be able to get back to the way we thought, you know, we would be able to plan and run these operations? You know, the answer is a little bit of both. We've had to adapt to a new normal of supply chains. We've had to adapt to, you know, some of the instability in people availability, so workforce availability across the piece.
I think by far and away, you know, we're very much impacted by some extraordinary climate change related, in my view, weather events across the piece. That exacerbated, you know, this instability that I spoke about. You know, we're slightly more resilient to that at the beginning of this year, but not completely immune. Absolutely not. You know, there remain a number of potential risks that exist around the globe, not only for us, but for most mining companies, depending on the jurisdiction which you operate in. You know, I do think we have our arms around it.
You know, we have, we have the right people and the right processes in place. We are minimizing the impact of these sorts of disruptions, be they weather-related, geopolitically related, or self-induced, in the way that I just described as far as operations and maintenance is concerned. We will come out of this. I mean, we already showed, you know, towards the end of last year, much higher levels of stability in the operating performance. That has moved forward into the first quarter of this year too. I hope that goes some way to answering your question, Myles.
Yeah, no, that's helpful and good color. Maybe just a last question from me. Obviously, a lot of incoming around Glencore / Teck, and obviously a few questions toying with zinc and Met Coal at the beginning of the call. You know, one thing where you are directly kind of impacted is, you know, QB2 and Collahuasi. Do you see significant synergies that some of the other partners are talking about? And would you be keen to crystallize those if the opportunity is there?
Yeah. Look, Myles, absolutely, you know, the one thing that we like about any sort of deal that we would contemplate would be the fact that there's a deep set of industrial logic, and parameters that sit around that from a value perspective. Certainly where you have adjacent assets, common infrastructure, and, you know, common supply of services, then absolutely, you know, there is potential for industrial logic to drive those sorts of synergies. I do absolutely see there is value in some form of Collahuasi, Quebrada Blanca, approach.
You know, I think with or without whatever happens at Teck, I mean, we don't comment on M&A at all, least of all comment on other people's M&A. You know, I think there's a, there's a, there's a, there's an opportunity there that we will all go after.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Paul Galloway for parting remarks.
Okay, guys. Look, thank you very much indeed for all joining this afternoon. Very much appreciated. Our next update is in October of this year. We do this twice a year. We think it's that important. Next news flow from us is our Q1 production numbers come out next week, as indeed is our AGM. With that, go very safely. Thank you very much indeed. All the very best. Thanks all