Sorry about that. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone who's joined for our Annual Sustainability Update. I'm Mark Bristow, CEO and President of Barrick. I trust you have had the chance to review our Sustainability Report published a few months ago. So today, we plan to dive into the highlights of that report and explore how we've integrated sustainability into every facet of our business. More importantly, this is your chance to engage with us directly, ask questions, share your thoughts, and tell us what you'd like to know more about regarding our sustainability efforts. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and plays a crucial role in our continuous improvement. I encourage you to participate actively during the question and answer session at the end of this presentation.
At Barrick, we believe that honesty and transparency are essential, and open, candid discussions are key to driving meaningful progress. So again, thank you all for joining us, and I look forward to our conversation. First, I would like to draw your attention to our cautionary statement, which is available on the website, should you need a copy. So today, we will be reaching into the heart of our sustainability business. We are eager to share with you the real on-the-ground results arising from our work, and there's no better way to do this than by walking you through some enlightening case studies. These site-specific success stories will give you a genuine sense of how our unique approach to sustainability is truly making a difference. Joining me here today at Nevada Gold Mines are members of our Sustainability Team who will guide us through these topics.
Grant Beringer, our Sustainability Executive, who reports directly to me and has executive oversight of all our assets. In Barrick's world, sustainability spans safety and health, community and the people, and the environment, as well as human rights. Then we have Detlev van der Veen, our Head of Health and Safety, who has been with us in several roles since 2016, and a year ago, took on a group role to elevate our safety programs and standardize our practices across the board. Duncan Pettit, our Sustainability Manager, is here too, and is a key member of the sustainability team, and later he will delve into our sustainability initiatives and their impact. Allison Brown, our Director of Reclamation and Closure, will discuss our strategies and progress in these critical areas.
Also in attendance is Graham Shuttleworth, our Group CFO, Lois Wark, Global Head of Communications and IR, and Cleve Rickard, our Director of Investor Relations, as well as our entire communications and IR team out of Toronto. It's a privilege to be able to share our progress and insights with you today, and I look forward to an engaging discussion, and trust you will also find this session to be informative. Before moving into our presentation, it is important to remind you of our global footprint and the diverse geographies and cultures within which we work. The drivers for our business are our tier one operations, with several here in the Nevada Gold Mines in Nevada, in the Dominican Republic, Mali, and the DRC, and a number of operations that have tier one potential, including Porgera and the combined Tanzanian assets, followed by Veladero in Argentina and Hemlo in Canada.
It's safe to say that no other company operates as many tier one assets as we do, as we focus on world-class assets. We have also built the foundations of a strong copper portfolio, which is necessary for the world of tomorrow. To meet the copper supply gap, we need to focus on developing new assets or expanding existing assets, and not just aimless acquisitions to bring copper into a company's portfolio. It's with this focus that Loulo-Gounkoto and Jabal Sayid have provided a steady platform from which to double our copper production by the end of the decade, with Loulo-Gounkoto undergoing a significant expansion and the much-talked-about Reko Diq in Pakistan coming into production in 2028....
Last year, the UN Sustainable Development Goals released their Global Sustainable Development Report, marking the halfway point to the 2030 target date for these crucial goals aimed at eradicating poverty. The findings were most concerning, though sadly not surprising. Out of 36 targets reviewed, only two were on track, and at least eight showed regression from the 2015 baseline. At Barrick, we've been reporting on the SDGs for years and consistently emphasized the critical role that mining plays in advancing these goals, especially in rural and developing regions. Our approach to sustainability has always been closely aligned with the SDGs, and the recently published UN Development Report echoes messages we've long championed that sustainability must be tackled holistically, recognizing that all aspects are interconnected. Solutions need to be context-specific, requiring detailed, localized analysis. In addition, that aspirations and commitments are just the beginning.
The real impact comes from translating these into actionable results on the ground. Finally, actions must be rooted in science to be effective and sustainable. We believe the current ESG landscape is out of sync with the SDGs. It has increasingly become a showcase for tertiary sectors in Western economies, and a recalibration is needed. This recalibration, we believe, should start with greater transparency. Just a short reminder to navigate to the sustainability section of our website, where you can view and download all our resources, including our policies, performance data specific to each asset, our tax contributions report, and our reporting on modern slavery. In the 2023 report, we designed a fresh, innovative layout for our industry-first sustainability scorecard. While the core principles of our scorecard remain steadfast, we've made it even more user-friendly.
We now feature a summary at the beginning that visually represents the distribution range for each sustainability aspect, and we've moved the detailed scoring to each chapter, to each chapter heading for easy reference. We are proud to emphasize our alignment with the UN Global Compact. We report on our annual Communication on Progress, demonstrating our dedication to these principles. Although some ESG raters may make unsupported claims regarding our assets' alignment with the UNGCs, it's crucial to conduct your own analysis. I would remind you that the UNGC has no ties to any ESG raters and has never raised concerns with us, something we take great pride in. During the presentation, we'll also delve into specific performance aspects, but I would like to highlight that we achieved our first A grade in 2023.
This marks a significant milestone in our ongoing journey towards annual improvement, which we consistently challenge our workforce to strive for. With that, let's start by focusing on safety, and so I will now hand over to Detlev.
Thank you, Mark, and hello to all of you. Reflecting on our safety outcomes of 2023, we reported a noteworthy 9% decrease compared to the previous year. Notably, there were significant reductions in the severity of our injuries, with an 18% decrease in lost time injuries and a 25% reduction in restricted duty injuries. Based on this, our frequency rates put Barrick in the lower quartile when compared to our peers as per the ICMM safety performance. Regrettably, the safety performance and improvements were offset by 5 fatalities that occurred during the year. The leading cause of these tragic incidents were related to energy isolation and mobile equipment accidents. This underscores the focus on effective training, particularly task training, and the link to our fatal risk management program.
As part of our Journey to Zero, we've identified four key elements, as shown here, that develop a strong and effective focus on our safety culture. Our focus and priority continue to be progressing on our Journey to zero initiative, which was launched in Q1 of 2023. We believe and have demonstrated at some of our sites work can be done without any serious injuries. It can be done and will be done. Our safety journey is illustrated on this roadmap. Key focus areas are completing safety culture assessments with independent safety consulting companies to determine the baseline for each of our regions. Our responsibility to stop unsafe work has been rolled out to the entire organization, where every individual has the responsibility to stop unsafe work and make it right by ensuring every critical control is in place prior to commencing work again.
Our Fatal Risk Management program is designed to prevent fatalities by standardizing communication on fatal risks and empowering employees to manage them effectively. It covers 10 fatal risks and their associated Critical Controls. The program follows a simple four-step process : identify risk, review controls, communicate plans, and stop work if controls are insufficient. We're going to launch a proactive near-miss program aimed at identifying and mitigating potential hazards before they escalate into incidents causing harm and damage. Supervisors' safety training also entails impact pre-start meetings, enhancing control effectiveness of Critical Control verifications, quality safety interactions, proactive risk identification, and building commitment through engagement. As well as looking at switching between lagging indicators to leading, which is the proactive safety culture, by emphasizing the importance of leading indicators with focus on near misses, Critical Control verifications, and incident learnings.
We launched the Nevada Gold Mines Training Mine in 2022, introducing a competency-based training program designed to provide training opportunities to inexperienced operators in open pit, underground, and the process areas. This six-week program provides a holistic learning experience, blending classroom sessions, simulator exercises, and hands-on field training by qualified trainers. Trainees will undergo theoretical and practical assessments at each stage of the curriculum to ensure a thorough understanding before progressing further. We will now play a video highlighting the NGM Training Mine.
Embarking on a new career can be intimidating.
I was really, really apprehensive because I've never drove... Well, most people haven't drove anything this big, but I don't even drive trucks. I just have a little car, so I was really, really scared.
Nevada Gold Mines, operated by Barrick, empowers new employees through education.
This is the place to start if you have no experience. Jumping straight into an operator job, it's going to be a little intimidating, and you're going to be a little lost for a while.
NGM's Training Mine program is designed to teach new employees about how the mine operates, the various positions, company culture, and safety.
I come from no experience whatsoever, so being able to see the process from a learning aspect rather than a working aspect, it's helping open my eyes to what we actually do. It's making me more comfortable with doing the job.
The training mine was absolutely beneficial because coming into this, I knew not a thing about anything underground, so all the hands-on experience was an amazing experience.
The Training Mine program has three divisions: Underground Training Mine, Surface Training Mine, and Process Training Mine. Each course takes place over several weeks. New employees start in the classroom before moving into the field.
The training mine is a good start to kind of embed our DNA in new employees and explain what we're doing and why we want to keep people safe.
You go through each one of the departments. Like, you go through all the truck driving, jumbos, drilling or blasting, paves. So they give you, like, a little overview of all the processes that go down there.
The courses cover a lot of information. For example, the process training mine provides training on crush, grind, and carbon in leach reagent circuits. The underground and surface training mine programs include trainings about entry-level truck operations, in addition to safety protocols and how to ID hazards.
I'd say the biggest benefit is the hazard ID. They're more competent in the field when they first get there with identifying hazards, and doing their workplace exams.
They are going to be more comfortable in their job, and they're going to be less worried or stressed about coming out here. Long hours, long shifts, swing shifts. They're more comfortable, they're happier, they're safer, and overall safety is our goal.
New employees learn to speak up when something isn't safe.
The culture at Nevada Gold Mines is really welcoming to everybody. It will definitely make me more confident in what I'm doing, looking out for others. You know, everyone going home safe.
Going home safe is part of NGM's DNA.
At the training mine, we teach them our DNA, which is NGM standards for what we expect from our people.
If they know the whys, they know the hows. So as long as we're training and we tell them the whys, they do a better job naturally because they know why they're doing it.
By giving new employees the tools they need from the start, NGM builds a strong foundation for the future.
It helped a lot knowing that I was going to be trained properly, knowing exactly what I was going to be doing, where I was going. That helped a lot, kind of make my decision on for sure that I want to be here.
With educated, passionate, and safe employees, NGM is creating long-term value for all of Nevada.
Since the kickoff in August 2022, we've seen over 650 participants with a remarkable 96% success rate and improved retention rate. Following positive feedback, we're expanding the curriculum. We also opened up our Barrick Academy in March at the closed Buzwagi Mine in Tanzania. It's a world-class facility designed to deliver customized training programs tailored to the development of Barrick's frontline managers. The program equips them with the necessary skills to effectively manage their teams and drive operational excellence. Beyond safety and managing the risk of injury, another critical aspect of our work is focused on the health and well-being of our employees and the community at large, and most notably, our fight to reduce and eradicate malaria.
In 2023, we reported the lowest incidence rate in our history at 11.35%, which is a 33% year-over-year improvement. Key factors driving to that improvement include awareness and education on malaria risk, transmission, symptoms, and prevention, regional entomological studies to identify the most effective sprays to tailor and adopt our approach, and lastly, the timely and the correct application of indoor residual spraying. We're committed to further reducing malaria rates and aiming for elimination of the disease within our communities. We will do this by frequent communication to promote preventative behaviors, expanding our vector control measures in communities surrounding our operations. Thank you, and I'll turn it over to Grant.
Thank you, Detlev, and hello to you all. At Barrick, we believe that sharing the benefits generated by operations through strong partnerships with our host communities and countries is the cornerstone of securing and maintaining our social license to operate. While this concept is straightforward, it takes a dedicated on-the-ground effort to truly realize its potential. By focusing on local employment, supporting local businesses, and investing in infrastructure and services, we create a ripple effect that fuels both local growth and our own success. We measure our success not just by the financial investments we make, but also through industry-leading key performance indicators, as shown here. These KPIs include the percentage of our workforce who are nationals of our host countries, and within that, the proportion who are directly from our local communities.
We also track the amount and impact of our procurement spend with local businesses and their contributions to community development. What truly distinguishes us in the industry is our community development committee, or CDC Model, which we implement across all our operating sites. This approach is founded on the belief that our communities understand their own needs best. So that is why they lead investment decisions, ensuring targeted, effective, and sustainable development that garners collective support. Last year, we enhanced our community development strategy by shifting from predominantly one-year projects to longer-term initiatives spanning three to five years. This strategic shift allows us to scale our efforts and drive even greater community impact. In terms of community engagement, we have set ambitious targets to address any grievances within 30 days. This metric helps us gauge site relations and the nature of grievances raised.
In 2023, the majority of the grievances came from two sites, Kibali and Pueblo Viejo, and this was primarily related to resettlement activities. While grievances during such processes are expected, their presence indicates that our grievance mechanism is functioning effectively. We acknowledge that some grievances may require more time to resolve due to the need for thorough investigation and engagement. Our target remains ambitious, but achievement of it will not be at the expense of proper and robust grievance management. As mentioned, we've begun incorporating non-financial KPIs into our reports, but I did want to highlight the significant financial investments we've made in the countries in which we operate. One of the most impressive takeaways is our consistent year-on-year increase in these investments, both in absolute terms and proportionally.
While these figures reflect our global contributions, I encourage you to explore the detailed asset and country-level data available in our downloadable performance reports, as well as our tax contributions report that can be found on our website. These resources provide a deeper insight into our ongoing commitment to making a positive impact in the communities we serve. Exploring country-specific data showcases the positive changes we are driving on the ground, and there is no better example of this impact, as we have seen in the communities surrounding the Reko Diq project in Pakistan. Reko Diq, one of the world's largest untapped copper-gold deposits, is situated in the remote and arid region of western Balochistan. This challenging environment features scarce surface water and isolated, low-quality groundwater, compounded by minimal infrastructure and services for the local people.... In response, one of our first steps was to establish community development committees.
We've set up two so far: Par-e-Koh CDC, located 20 KM from the site and serving several small rural communities, and another in Nok Kundi, a town 70 KM away. A third CDC is in the process of being established and will prioritize isolated and small communities further afield, but still within the district, as we slowly grow our investment reach. The CDCs have been highly effective, making a significant difference by bringing vital infrastructure and services to the region that many of us take for granted elsewhere in the world. Thanks to these efforts, primary school education began last year, marking the first time in a generation that all the settlement's children are attending school. We've established health clinics, a mobile health facility, and a new hospital in Nok Kundi.
Additionally, CDC funds have been used to refurbish and build new reverse osmosis water treatment plants, turning saline water into clean drinking water. We've also launched vocational and technical training programs, preparing young Baloch men and women for future job opportunities related to the project. Our first group of Baloch interns are already gaining hands-on experience at our Veladero mine in Argentina. All of this has been accomplished in just over a year of community development at Reko Diq. It's remarkable to see such a high level of investment translate into tangible impacts so quickly. While the Reko Diq project exemplifies the incredible potential of mining to uplift forgotten communities, our integration into the community here at NGM showcases what sustainable development can look like for decades to come.
As the largest gold-producing complex in the world, spanning four counties in northern Nevada, we recognize that even in the United States, communities can face unique challenges. In recent years, we've made significant investments in key development projects, particularly in education. Our initiatives provide access to learning resources for students from all economic backgrounds, promote STEM outreach, and supports early childhood development. By offering childcare, we have removed barriers for parents, especially women looking to enter the job market. Our I-80 Fund is another cornerstone of our community investment strategy in Nevada. We've provided loans to small and medium-sized enterprises for start-up capital and business growth, totaling nearly $11 million in loans to 96 businesses and supporting 490 employees. These loans come with low interest rates and favorable repayment terms, allowing funds to be recycled back into the community to support even more local businesses.
This sustainable loan facility empowers entrepreneurs and fosters ongoing growth within our communities. We vigorously apply the mitigation hierarchy, which means that alternatives are assessed and interrogated as part of project design and feasibility. This approach is particularly important when it comes to resettlement. We explore every option to avoid resettlement, but when resettlement is necessary, we apply international standards to ensure that this process leaves those individuals in at least the same, but more often than not, a better position and livelihood. We are currently undertaking a number of resettlements across the group, including at Pueblo Viejo, Lumwana, Bulyanhulu, and North Mara. While these are ongoing, during 2023, we completed the resettlement at Kibali, namely the Kalimva, Ikamva, and Pamao communities, and reached the important milestone of handing over the Avokala host site to the government. In total, we've resettled more than 1,400 households.
It is not just replacement housing with adequate design and materials that is included in resettlement, but livelihood restoration, too. As part of this support, the projects at Avokala host site included the development of over 110 hectares of agricultural fields, growing corn and cassava, to fish farms and food markets. We also constructed facilities that provide services such as education, healthcare, and churches. Resettlement may be our last option, but it's undeniable that the outcome leaves these people in a better position and certainly more resilient. We firmly believe that the positive impacts of mining can only be fully realized when all human rights are respected and upheld. That's why respect for human rights is a foundation of our sustainability vision. Central to our commitment is our comprehensive Human Rights Program, which aligns with internationally accepted standards and principles.
We diligently implement our Human Rights Policy and support it through independent assessments to ensure accountability and transparency. This proactive program aims to identify any gaps or emerging concerns in our Human Rights diligence, driving continuous improvement. The findings from our independent assessments are equally focused on enhancing our practices and ensuring we remain at the forefront of human rights stewardship. As part of our commitment to transparency, we are actively working on summaries of these assessments for disclosure. It's important to clarify that these assessments focus on risk rather than impact. We recognize that certain sites may attract more attention than others, so we wanna take this opportunity to shine a light on those aspects directly, providing facts and context we believe will be useful, starting with North Mara.
Our relationship with our North Mara communities has grown since 2019, and we're proud to say that we've not only built trust, but also established a strong social license to operate. We're dedicated to implementing our strategy, which focuses on creating robust partnerships and placing local communities at the heart of our operations to ensure they truly benefit from the mine's presence. As you all know, we've set up quarterly engagements between the village chairpersons and the Barrick executive team, led by Mark. These sessions continue to thrive, fostering direct leadership to leadership engagement, where no topic is off limits. This approach highlights the importance we place on our community relationships as we work together to tackle challenges together. This progress is witnessed in some of the KPIs we track.
Nearly 60% of our workforce now comes from the communities surrounding the mine, and with an impressive 96% of our employees being nationals. We have also significantly increased our in-country procurement, helping Tanzanian businesses grow with a remarkable 113% increase in our spend on goods and services since we took control. Our community investment has provided potable water for 35,000 residents, with a phase II expansion in the plans. This is the real story of North Mara. It's all too easy to form opinions when one comes across biased articles written by individuals who aren't on the ground and who do not represent the interests of our local communities. In addition, Tanzanian NGOs visit the mine quarterly to partner on community-based projects or to gain a deeper understanding of our work.
It's worth noting that these local organizations, who are engaged with the community and see our operations firsthand, don't share the same concerns as some international NGOs. We want to acknowledge that we do face challenges at North Mara, including intrusions by criminals that can sometimes turn violent. However, it is important to understand that these individuals do not reflect the sentiments of the broader community, and as such, incidents are condemned by local leaders and residents alike. Nonetheless, we know that there's a criminal syndicate at play, and addressing these issues will require broader government intervention to ensure lasting solutions. So after witnessing the significant progress we have made at North Mara through partnering with the communities, it was disappointing to have received the joint communication from the UN Human Rights Commission.
While our response to the commission wasn't included in our sustainability report due to the publication timing, we wanna take this opportunity to address it directly. We firmly disagree with the substance of the allegations in the joint communication, as well as the process that led to its publication and distribution. We have published an extensive and detailed response to the UN joint communication, and this can be found on our website. Moving on to Papua New Guinea and the restart of Porgera. Porgera is another asset that has been of focus. We successfully reopened the mine earlier this year, and overall, the progress has been encouraging. However, we've also faced unexpected challenges, including a national state of emergency in quarter one of this year and a landslide last month that tragically claimed lives and severely impacted vital infrastructure associated with our supply routes.
In the past and prior to the merger, there were several external recommendations made on how the company could enhance community relations. Since then, our new management team has dedicated significant time on the ground, and we believe we have gained a deep understanding of the complex situation in the Porgera Valley. With this in mind, we are well-positioned to develop our own plans aimed at uplifting the communities in the region. We are committed to fostering positive relationships and making a meaningful impact in the lives of the people we serve. We have published these key social and environmental actions for our restart, as summarized on this slide... Moving now to our workforce representation. While I won't dive into all the numbers, I did want to highlight the impressive percentage of our workforce that comes from our host communities.
This truly reflects our commitment to being a local presence in the regions where we operate, and makes us one of the most diverse companies within the industry. We have made strides in improving women's representation within our workforce, but we recognize there's still much work to do. One of our proudest achievements is at Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic, which leads the way in gender representation across Barrick, and is a standout in the industry. Pueblo Viejo has earned recognition from the National Ministry of Women and the Development Program of the United Nations with the Platinum Seal. This certification honors top Dominican companies that excel in promoting gender balance and inclusion in the workplace. Additionally, we've conducted a gender study across our Africa and Middle East region to better understand the barriers to attracting and retaining women in our workforce.
This study identified a range of challenges, including regulatory and cultural restrictions. We recognize that finding the right approach to achieve these changes is nuanced, and each site has its own action plans tailored to foster the representation and change we seek. I'll now hand it over to Duncan, who will walk us through our environmental progress for the year.
Thanks, Grant, and good day to you all. Taking a look at our environmental scorecard, we are pleased that we have hit all of our targets that we set for ourselves when compared to peer performance. Most notably, we see our greenhouse gas emissions continue their trend downwards, and we met our 2025 emission reduction target by reducing our emissions by more than 15% since our 2018 base year. However, we must again highlight that our emission reduction targets are long-term, and our annual progress, albeit important, is subject to fluctuations. These are non-linear and must be viewed as an emission at a point in time in context of a broader commitment. It's with that in mind that we again rated ourselves as a 3 in the scorecard, and that we are on track to meet these targets.
But with two years still to operate before our 2025 short-term target, there's still ongoing work to be done. We have provided some additional context of our emissions profile in this year's report, and electricity is unsurprisingly our largest source of emissions. Our current Scope 1 and 2 emission reductions to date are primarily driven by NGM and the implementation of our power purchase agreements. We also disclosed our Scope 3 emission targets at the end of last year, and these targets include short-term interval reviews and updates. And this is to spur global change and accelerate collaboration and not just long-term speculative aspirations. Our targets include the need to work with our local partners to build their own awareness and reduction opportunities.
Localization of our supply chain and sharing the benefits of our operations is still key to our business, and our work on Scope 3 does not shift this focus. Using solely an emission-focused lens in the supply chain at the expense of local businesses means those local businesses and communities will remain unable to lift themselves out of poverty, build resilience, and will continue to bear the brunt of extreme weather events and the changing climate. This is counterintuitive and not the intention of the SDGs, nor the intention of Scope 3 emissions, and we won't compromise on our philosophy. We are busy with a number of work streams associated with our climate strategy. Firstly, we are busy working through the update of our life of mine emission forecasts, with particular focus on the Lumwana expansion and commissioning of Reko Diq.
Reflecting back to 2019 and our original emission reduction target setting, we were initially criticized for not being ambitious enough. However, we have always maintained that our emission reduction roadmaps need to be demonstrable. Our targets were set based on a steady state production profile and without the need to close any assets. With our production profile set to significantly expand into the future, it is important for us to review and update our forecasts against this production profile. We'll be applying the same principles and approach linked to our production to manage our emissions reduction roadmap. Some key projects in our roadmap include the commission solar here at NGM, and we have additional solar projects to be implemented at Pueblo Viejo and Kibali. The latter of which will have the mine running completely on renewable electricity for at least six months of the year.
We also continue to roll out our climate scenario analysis and climate risk assessments. Understanding potential future extreme weather events aren't just to manage our operations, but are also important to ensure safe closure for an asset. More so, we also use these studies to understand what risks our host communities are subject to. Last year, we experienced a 1 in 500-year rainfall event at Pueblo Viejo. Importantly, our infrastructure, particularly the TSF, stood up well to such an extreme event and our teams responded well. However, some public infrastructure faced the greatest impacts, with roads washed away and communities impacted by restriction to movements and a lack of access to their places of work, food, and healthcare. These impacts were only short-term, but these events remind us the importance of these studies and being prepared and in partnership with our host stakeholders.
Some investors have shared their feedback on our report and have asked for additional disclosures associated with these studies, and we are now working to provide that information that reflects a snapshot of the hazard type and risk per location. However, our studies to date have shown that our assets are designed to be resilient, and the main risks relate to extreme temperatures and the effects that this has on energy requirements, whether it's increased electricity for cooling or heating, or impacts to generation, such as solar panel derating. Here we show our water reuse rates across the group, along with the predominant water sources for each operation. We have reached a consistent and industry-leading level of performance regarding our water reuse.
Although we constantly review our water balances and opportunities to improve this further, we are currently operating close to our maximum performance, and further opportunities are largely minor incremental improvements. We also report on our water use for water-stressed areas. A lot of external definitions of water stress continue to prioritize water scarcity. Our water stress definition, however, also includes water abundance, and we continue to be one of the few organizations that incorporate abundant water into this definition. While water scarcity usually results in potential social tensions, water abundance has the very real risk for causing infrastructure failure, overtopping of wastewater and waste facilities, to flooded farms, to disconnected supply routes, and increased disease and illness. We do get asked very little about water abundance, but it's an area we place a lot of effort and focus.
This year's report, and as shown on this slide, included our biodiversity exposure and opportunity prioritization per site. We recognize the importance of global biodiversity tools, but we must also highlight the limitations in using these tools, which are, to an extent, also demonstrated herein. Existing tools are based on a coarse grid and often do not account for local context, and combined with the global stresses on nature, this often results in an almost uniform, high risk, and near collapse of biodiversity status, regardless of the environment being assessed. These outcomes aren't conducive to informed decision-making, setting measurable actions, or for some of the realities on the ground. So within this map, we aim to share what those regional pressures are, and we must emphasize that these are regional and not necessarily site-specific.
With this context of these regional pressures, we then aim to share what we deem to be more important, and that is what and how we are managing and measuring biodiversity changes over time. This is why our regional projects are important for biodiversity management and conservation. From our support in the Garamba National Park, to the REDD+ project in Zambia, to our regional intervention and investment into sagebrush and other habitats in northern Nevada. To ensure our interventions and investments are having the desired biodiversity effect, we need a robust tool to measure and track biodiversity. This year, we developed our own Biodiversity Residual Impact Assessment Tool in collaboration with third-party experts.
This tool aims to surpass just using the existing global data layers by incorporating that local knowledge and priorities when establishing our baselines, to identifying residual impacts, setting KPIs for no net loss, and consistently measuring contributions through time. The ultimate goal is to enhance value not only to Barrick's business, but also to local communities and shareholders seeking this vital information. We have now completed the pilots for the tool at Carlin and Cortez and Pueblo Viejo, and we are now busy rolling that out company-wide. Like with any new tool, we are still working through some context-specific kinks to ensure the applicability, regardless of our jurisdiction, and expect to resolve all of these nuances with a group-wide rollout. This tool's methodology is designed to be that, iterative and to ensure continuous adaptation as data and insights in this space evolve.
We know that we've been speaking about this tool's development for some time, but we really are excited to share the results of the tool once this group-wide rollout is completed. Achieving no net loss of our key biodiversity features is a commitment for Barrick that ensures we leave our sites in a safe state following closure. And speaking of closure, that is the perfect segue to pass on to Allison. Thank you.
Thanks, Duncan, and good morning, everyone. Barrick's mine closure approach is aligned with our sustainability philosophy. When done well, with early planning and holistic thinking, closure really can deliver positive, lasting, sustainable legacies. Understanding and mitigating long-term risk is critical to this philosophy, particularly when it comes to our tailings storage facilities, which are one of the most complex aspects of closure planning. At Barrick, we manage long-term risk by bringing our tailings storage facilities into safe closure. Safe closure isn't just a designation for us. It's a process by which we assess our facilities to understand and manage the potential impacts to human health and the environment. With 40 closed tailings storage facilities across the group, we've developed a roadmap to progressively bring these facilities towards safe closure on a priority basis....
In 2023, the closed Giant Nickel tailings storage facility in British Columbia, Canada, was the first to achieve safe closure. This designation was the culmination of seven years of effort to collect data, assess and improve the facility's performance, and have our work confirmed by our independent reviewers. Earlier this year, we also brought our closed Nickel Plate tailings facility into safe closure, and we have plans to designate up to nine more facilities in 2024 and eight in 2025. In addition to our focus on safe closure, Barrick remains steadfast about its commitment to planning with closure in mind, and this means rehabilitating our mines while they're still operational. All of our operations have five-year reclamation plans and annual targets for concurrent rehabilitation.
In 2023, thanks to the great efforts by our operational teams, we exceeded our annual group target by completing 958 hectares of rehabilitation against a plan of 850 hectares. With that, I'll pass back to Mark to wrap up our presentation.
Thank you, Allison. So, ladies and gentlemen, I hope we have managed to demonstrate to you that our holistic approach to sustainability is entrenched throughout the organization, and that our long-term scientific and measured approach is delivering results on the ground. But yesterday's performance doesn't mean we can rest easy today, and we as a team appreciate that we need to do even better tomorrow as we chase continuous improvement. Based on our annual materiality assessment, we want to show a few of our focus areas for the year ahead. We have some key projects that we will deliver, namely the environmental and social impact assessments for the Lumwana expansion and Reko Diq project, and the conclusion of a number of resettlement projects from Pueblo Viejo, and to, from Pueblo Viejo to Tanzania.
The restart of Porgera continues to be a key focus in setting the groundwork for embedding our culture, DNA, and policies into an asset that was unfortunately placed into care and maintenance soon after 2019 merger. We continue to support and endorse the standards consolidation between the ICMM, World Gold Council, TSM, and Copper Mark, and believe this will be an important step for the industry and improving responsible mining standards at scale. While these are all long-term projects, our most important long-term focus is to ensure sustainability and safety are core to everything we do every day. Safety is our focus at every line out of every shift, every day of the year.
We have seen some encouraging signs that our efforts are delivering results, from group injury-free months to site LTI-free years, but this trend is only meaningful if each of our employees goes home safely to their family every day. I would like to conclude by reiterating my opening message. We know that done right, the mining sector is a powerful catalyst in the struggle for social and economic development, quickly and directly supporting entrepreneurs and communities, and bringing stakeholders together for collective action. At Barrick, our sustainability strategy and approach is enabling us to realize these opportunities and ensure sustainable delivery. So, ladies and gentlemen, that ends the formal presentation part of today, and I thank you all for your time. We would like to now open it up for questions from yourselves. That is, questions and just comments if you have some.
So please follow the instructions on the screen to ask your question, paying attention to the device applicable to you. And I'll pass it now on to Lois, who will be managing the questions.
Thank you, Mark. I'll just go through those instructions. For those attendees who wish to answer questions, please refer to the procedure on the screen. If you are viewing this event on your desktop, click the Raise Hand icon at the bottom of your Webex screen. Wait for the unmute yourself request, and once done, ask your question. For those of you viewing on your mobile phone, tap the three dots at the bottom of your Webex screen. Click the Raise Hand icon at the bottom of your screen, and wait for the unmute yourself request to ask a question. If you'd prefer to type your question using the Q&A portal on your desktop, click the Q&A icon in the bottom right-hand of your screen and type your question to all panelists. Thanks, and we'll start to take your questions.... Mark, I have a question from Peter Lunt.
Question is, you said resettlement leaves people in a better position. Is this short-term or long-term? Do you monitor this after Barrick has closed the mine and or left? If there is an example, that is. Do you have a longer term monitoring program? If so, how?
So, Peter, we definitely do monitor it. It's interesting, if you take Kibali as an example, which has been going on for a long time, our first resettlement was Kokiza. We've had a number of them after that. Of course, we monitor them, and we re-establish infrastructure like water, central water areas. We add to the infrastructure from time to time. What I can say is that, interestingly, as we manage that community, it's amazing how some people develop their houses and build onto the infrastructure that they received from the original time. Kibali is a good example. What that community has done is it's merged into a number of other communities.
I'll put it in perspective. We started with about 30,000 people in the greater community around Kibali when we first started the feasibility study or arrived there back in 2009, and today there are more than 500,000 people in that whole urban area. Everyone that works in Kibali, we expect to establish some presence within the community, and today we've got banks and shops and engineering firms. We've got a Toyota dealership. There's a lot. So it's a self-sustaining community, and there's a point, and it's also got its own administration, et cetera. So there's a point where, you know, from our point of view, we definitely don't believe in paternalism, and so, you know, it's a sustainable, an established urban area today.
Of course, we continue to invest in certain projects as we develop the mine over time, but there is a time when you stop monitoring it. Like, Grant, do you want to add to that?
Yeah, I think... Thanks, Peter. I think the one thing that I would add is that, as Mark explained, you know, there's a point where it needs to be sustainable, and we have obviously handed over a number of these, this infrastructure, not only to the people. And it's important to note that many of them that are resettled, if not all, receive title to that land, which they never had before, which is also a key aspect of the resettlement. It enables them to lend against that property, you know, one day sell it on. But also from a best practice perspective is, we conduct assessments after the resettlement has taken place, and not directly afterwards, but two, three, four years later, to assess that.
We generally get independent third parties to do that assessment. It is, I guess, a bit of an acid test for us to understand how that resettlement has gone and where we can improve. And particularly focused on that point that I made around livelihood restoration, because that is key to the resettlement. It's not just giving individuals a new house, but it is making sure that they can sustain that over the long term by livelihood restoration. So I think that covers the answer to the question.
Yeah. I have another two questions from Peter Lunt of Ruffer, so let me read them both at the same time. On climate strategy or plans, do you have internally a marginal abatement cost curve or equivalent, that is? Do you know what project, what products, technologies, services can offer carbon reduction or avoidance, at what cost in dollar terms or percent IRR terms or cost of carbon terms? Do you have a position on whether an MACC is useful as a management tool? You want to answer that one first, Grant?
So, I'll hand that to Duncan. I believe, Duncan, you're good for that, huh?
Sure.
Yeah.
Thanks, Peter. Yeah, we've done a number of studies. Obviously, we're part of some collective organizations where we also, you know, share some work and with the OEMs and looking at new technologies that are available to us and how we can, as an industry, progress some of those. And then we also separately to that, have our own research and development projects, where we look into some of those additional projects where we can reduce our emissions and then obviously assess the feasibility and IRR against those. Those are obviously specific to those projects. For our solar projects, you know, those are obviously the key ones where we do have those, and it's a very quick payback period. I think it is hard to collectively put a number to, you know, any general carbon reduction project.
I t's always assessed on a per project basis. You know, once we run those through our feasibilities, then we usually share those costs within our sustainability roadmap. Particularly going back a couple of years, we had our roadmap with associated capital for some of those key projects. We haven't always linked it to that very specific part of your question. You know, I think it's something we can certainly look to do, with relative ease and, make sure that we can start putting some of those ratios together if that's something that interests you.
Okay, then the final one from Peter on biodiversity. The ICMM talks about nature positive, and you talk about no net loss. Why? Are these synonymous, different, impossible? And can you talk about the white rhino project in the DRC, please?
Grant, do you wanna have a crack at that?
Yes, sure. I think, in terms of the no net loss versus, you know, the positive impact, I think the one thing, Peter, that we have certainly done and we've learned from, you know, the climate change and setting targets associated with our emissions and taken that to biodiversity. I think we all can agree that we could have managed that better in terms of target setting when we look back at how we did for climate. So we wanted to take that those lessons learned and do it differently for biodiversity. And I think what is fundamental to setting any target is that you need to be able to measure it, and or measure against it.
Unfortunately, you know, we've seen all too often, you know, companies making these targets without fully understanding what their baseline is, and therefore you can't measure against that, whether it's improvement or not. So that's essentially why we've put together this biodiversity tool, and that is to measure our... We'll take the baselines that we have and then identify key habitats and key species within those that are gonna reflect that change. Again, be it positive, neutral, or negative. So as you say, the ICMM have set, you know, positive gain in terms of biodiversity. I think we probably need to take it a couple of steps backwards in terms of, first, how do we measure it?
That's what our tool does, and we've engaged with the ICMM on that, to see whether the tool that we've got we can take further and actually get many of the companies within the ICMM to adopt that, because we believe that is an important step for us to determine whether we're making an impact on biodiversity. So I'll just hand over to Duncan to add maybe a little more on that front.
Yeah, I think just a brief differentiation. Nature is a, you know, broader term for the ecosystem, so air, soil, water, and biodiversity is a component within that. So when we speak about positive contributions to nature, it's all of those components that are going into it. We then believe the foundational step to building a positive contribution to nature is the biodiversity component, and that's where, you know, our philosophy is we cannot have a contribution, a positive contribution to nature if we haven't at least achieved no net loss on biodiversity. So it's really setting that foundational base for the larger nature commitment.
And then, Peter, just to, I think, answer your second part of your question around the white rhino, and just an update. As you know, last year we reintroduced 16 southern white rhino from South Africa into the Garamba National Park. Obviously, the last rhino in Garamba was 2006. We set the ambitious goal of bringing this mega herbivore back to the Garamba National Park, which is a World Heritage Site. We successfully did that, but we're not stopping there. Our contribution and our partnership with both the Congolese government as well as African Parks means that a further 72 white rhino are going to be reintroduced to Garamba.
We're in the process of working through the various logistical requirements as well as the permitting, and in the next couple of months, we'll certainly keep you posted on it, but in the next couple of months, we'll see an additional 72 white rhino going up to the Garamba National Park, which, you know, is a milestone. I think the 16 that we had there is certainly a milestone, but bringing 72 means that it's a robust breeding population of white rhino in the park that we believe will be sustainable. And I think, you know, it would be remiss of me if I didn't talk a little bit about the fact that it took 13 years to get there, but we had to make sure that the park was safe to do so.
And we invested heavily in anti-poaching and other aspects around the Garamba National Park, which enabled that to happen. And not only have we managed to secure, you know, conservation in the Garamba National Park, but we've brought safety and security to the local communities that surround that national park, and it was great to see that community fully invested in this and celebrated the fact that we brought the white rhino back to Garamba National Park.
... And, Peter, I'll add a bit more on that, as well. Just while we're on the Garamba, you know, one of the things we can demonstrate very clearly is that Kibali is definitely a net gain, you know, from the time we first arrived there. But, you know, if you understand conservation, to start off wanting to gain something or to add positively is sort of overambitious. You know, we always believe in being sort of conservative and determined to deliver, and so no net loss is a very good way to start, because this world is always promising things it can't do.
I would just build on what Grant and Duncan have said, too, in that just like the rhino program, which is a unique program, and today we now are measuring the growth of those herds of rhino, buffalo. There's a big expanding lion population. We've got chimpanzees. The Rothschild giraffe is no longer threatened. There's a... It's an, it's a whole ecosystem that our focus has now brought back to this World Heritage site. And we're doing a similar thing in Nevada as an example with the sage grouse and reestablishing their habitats across the northern part of Nevada.
And just recently we also entered into a partnership with Trout Unlimited to reintroduce native cutthroat trout and reestablish the fisheries, and therefore, the entire ecosystem in some of these drainage regions. And as part of that, we've been working with Trout Unlimited to deal with the legislation around being able to rehabilitate old mine sites that were not Barrick's problem. But again, we believe, and if you wanna recover the fisheries and the waterways, you've got to do that. But we need specific legislation so that we don't open a liability when we touch some of these old un-rehabilitated mine sites or mine workings from yesteryear. So this is a...
And we have initiatives similar to these three initiatives across the globe, and we will continue to do it. So not only do we look at working to have no net loss within our actual footprints of our mines, but we are always looking to opportunities that give us a chance to really offset by preserving unique habitats and the associated biodiversity.
Okay. From Janell Matie, from JPMorgan Chase: "Hi, all. Great webinar. Thanks for your time and efforts. I just wanted to understand the timeline for publishing the recent human rights assessment results in Tanzania. Also, on the UN Human Rights letter, can you please indicate any next steps besides what's published on the website? Do you need to formally respond to the UN, or how does the matter get closed?
Okay, I'll pass you to you, Grant. Grant's been leading this.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Janelle, and thanks for joining us today. I think just in terms of the timeline associated with our disclosure of the human rights assessments that we do, I mean, obviously we do more than just those at North Mara. You know, we do it at all of our what we call high-risk sites, and that's done every other year, as well as desktop reviews of the other sites. In terms of North Mara and that disclosure, we've actually got an assessment coming up towards the end of this year, and we would like to publish those findings. Just based on the work that we've done since the last assessment, it is probably out of date in terms of those recommendations.
That's what we want to disclose, is, you know, some of the recommendations that are made and how we're tracking against that, much like our sustainability scorecard. But in the period from now until then, there's other assessments that we can publish. We recently completed an assessment at Lumwana, and again, we will publish that. It is a timing as to when those assessments are done, but as we've committed to in our report, we will disclose that and disclose information that we believe will be useful to yourselves. As I said in the presentation, it is around those recommendations and the risks that are potentially associated with sites, and that's what we aim to disclose.
In terms of the UN Human Rights Commission response, as you would have seen, we've published our very detailed response. And you know, based on some of the discussions we've had since we've published that, we believe it was very successful in providing the true context at North Mara and the situation at North Mara, which you know, not everyone fully understands, and obviously we're on the ground, we're engaging with the local communities often. But more importantly, we're also engaging with those local NGOs. So it's important that that response from us was thorough and detailed. But notwithstanding that, we do know that the human the UN Human Rights Commission has published our response.
Unfortunately, they have redacted some information, and we're not entirely sure as to why they did that. We have asked them for reasoning behind that. We haven't received a response to date. However, the full unredacted version is obviously on our website, and you can obviously review that. I think it's important to note that over and above the UN report to us, is that we've been engaging on these matters for years, and you would have seen that in our public statements we've made on the North Mara microsite on our website.
And we've taken that even a step further, where we've actually, on behalf of some of these NGOs who have been unable to provide us with facts and evidence of these allegations, on their behalf, we've approached the Tanzanian Human Rights Commission, which is an independent body that is set up for exactly these types of allegations. It is obviously disappointing that these international NGOs didn't do it themselves, but we engaged with the Human Rights Commission in Tanzania, and they've conducted a site visit. We opened our doors to them to conduct that site visit as per some of these allegations.
So, we understand that they're in the process of compiling their report, and whether they make that public or not is obviously their prerogative, but we'll certainly work closely with them to understand if there's any recommendations made and so on. And then finally, before perhaps I hand over to Mark for any closing remarks on this, is that the UN process is rather disappointing from our side, in that once we have submitted our response, as we have, there is no conclusion to this. The process has no finality, which is disappointing based on the fact that there were a number of allegations made, which we have now reported on. However, we will look at other ways that we can try and close this, and also, I think, hold people to account.
If you start this process, it needs to be finalized, so we'll pursue other avenues to see how that can be done. Now, Mark, if there's-
No, I would add a bit. Janelle, I think there's just a couple of things. First of all, this was a very unprofessional approach by the UN. The redaction that Grant refers to, what was redacted was the reference to certain individuals that had a connection, direct connection, used to be associated with RAID, an NGO that's been beating up on us in Tanzania for a very long time, without being able to substantiate and deliver us evidence. And so that, you know, will raise your eyebrows. They didn't bother either to reach out to the Tanzanian government, which really was the focus of that initial report.
So again, you know, our intention is to definitely take anything like that seriously, but to Grant's point, you know, work to have a fully transparent engagement. And right now, what's happening in this field, and it's become a business largely, is that anyone can just make anything up and then publish it or put it on social media, and then it becomes the truth, and that's just not the case. So, you know, our intention to Grant's point is to seek closure on every time we have some of these. And we have similar issues down in South America on exactly the same basis.
Those, you know, we've started by saying everything that we do, everything that we engage with, everything that we publish, and everything that's sent to us, and all claims made, we put on our website now so that people can see and track the history. That's a good first start, and of course, then we work with our communities. For instance, on the water issues in South America, we have joint sampling teams. We work with not only the local communities, and I meet those local communities as part of my program through the year. So at least once a year I have an open forum where we invite everyone, those pro and against our investments, along with the local authorities and also the federal authorities.
We have an open workshop. So, you know, we are absolutely committed to point to make everything public so that our shareholders understand what we do. Because, you know, going back to the whole concept of tackling poverty, right now, you know, sitting in a privileged place in the first world and throwing accusations at people like us who are investing and uplifting communities around the world in much more challenging jurisdictions, is not gonna help this world get itself to a better place. At the same time, we recognize that we need to do it within a certain set of rules and principles and ethics, and we embrace that.
I have a few questions from Sarah Morris Lang of BMO Global Asset Management. On page 55 of your sustainability report, you describe elements of your human rights risk assessment across regions. You acknowledge here that human rights violations are often the root cause of social unrest and conflict, which in turn usually results in further human rights violations. You also acknowledge that corruption and human rights violations are inextricably linked, noting that you look at host country scores on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Given the above, how do you reconcile the risks inherent in operating in regions where there are high rates of corruption, as per the Corruption Perceptions Index, and reliance on the community development committees and leadership-to-leadership dialogue to advance positive human rights outcomes?
In other words, what kind of due diligence does Barrick conduct to ensure that the most marginalized within communities, the most impacted by possible state corruption that leads to human rights abuses, are heard and addressed?
So I'll kick off, Sarah. The first thing is, absolutely, you if you go onto our website, we have this, the Barrick DNA, and it's very clear how we approach everything, and on top of that, we do not pay bribes or entertain any type of corruption. So behavior and principles and ethics is the first aspect of that. And then, of course, we evaluate and engage. Before we invest in a country, I have numerous meetings with various levels of the establishment and authority and lay those principles out. And then, of course, we have certain filters like, you know, being able to rely on the legislation, the right to international arbitration, the principles of being able to get our investments out.
You know, things like we've changed a lot of things like the right for women to work is something that we work on all the time, particularly to allow women and geologists and engineers to go underground. And there's a whole swath of principles that we will engage with to establish a set of rules by which we will invest. And then it's about how we behave in that country. And it starts with our management, our engagement with the local community, and then grows from there to the regional authorities, both traditional, we recognize traditional authorities and the appointed authorities.
Then, from that, we work back up to the federal leadership or the national leadership, depending on the political structure of that particular destination. So, you know, there's a very clear process by which we go in. We do not, you know, I've always said that asset quality is a big driver in developing regions. And so if we have a high-quality asset, it means that it can support a substantial amount of investment and distribution back into those regions, and there's no better example than Reko Diq.
If you look at what we've done in Reko Diq, and as you know, that's a very complex society, both when you look specifically at Balochistan, where the Reko Diq investment is, and then put it into the whole context of that region and Pakistan, the federal structure or the national structure. And today we've changed the lives of the people within the impact zone of Reko Diq, by, as we always do, invest in water, and you should go into our website and have a look at that. Potable water was not, you know, the life expectancy was below 50 years old in that whole region because of saline water and no availability to clean, pure drinking water, and now all the communities have that.
Education, and I'll leave Grant to comment on the education part. But we are, you know, we have aspirations to really train the people so that they can participate in the development of Reko Diq, and get a priority as far as employment goes. And then it's about primary education, primary health, and then looking to develop a business community as well within those regions. And we've done that in every country that we've invested in, including Nevada, because when we got to Nevada back in 2019, we didn't really embrace the local business. We didn't really reach out into the communities.
It was more about social responsibility than community investments and embracing and recognizing the fact that we effectively manage national assets as miners, no matter where we are, no matter how we own them, and that it's important that the local community and that host country gets its fair share of the benefits of the value that we create out of mining it. So that's the sort of framework I'll pass on to Grant to fill in the gaps.
Yeah, thanks, Mark, and thanks, Sarah. I mean, obviously, we've had a number of engagements before on this topic, but you know, as we've said before, yes, we do operate in some jurisdictions that, in terms of these bigger indexes, and you must remember that they're you know, more regional than site-specific do come up as high risk. But our approach has always been that if we are really going to make a change, we need to make a change in those jurisdictions. And we believe through our process that we can do that, and we've demonstrated that, you know, taking North Mara as a good case study. We've shown that...
And you mentioned those engagements, the leadership-to-leadership engagement, and how that can influence human rights, and the promotion thereof, and I think we've done that. You know, not only in those quarterly dialogues that we have with the village leadership, where aspects of basic human rights are discussed, be it education, as Mark mentioned, or access to clean drinking water, or from a security perspective. And those aspects are discussed. And not only that, but we believe we can bring a positive change to those communities, and therefore make sure that basic human rights are met through those discussions. Not only that, but our engagement in local contractors and procurement of local goods and services.
Whenever we onboard any contractors, we go through a full due diligence process, and a large portion of that is focused on human rights. So in terms of ensuring there's no child labor, and that the mandatory hours are worked, and so on. So there's another way that we engage and are able to influence that human rights discussion. In terms of our due diligence process, I mean, I'll hand over to Duncan to talk a little bit through that process, but I think you are fairly well familiar with that based on some of the discussions we've had, but Duncan will just run over some of the highlights.
Thanks, Grant. Hey, Sarah. So I'll keep it brief, but, you know, really, that risk profile then determines the level of due diligence or heightened due diligence that we will undertake. And within that, the differences between it would then be informed by the additional experts or subject matter experts in their fields that we would need to bring in, specific to those risks identified for a certain area. The level of independent involvement that we would include within that, and then within both internally and externally, the frequency at which we have to assess those risks, and then the controls and mitigation measures we put in to deal with some of those risks.
And then within all of those, we, you know, have certain metrics that we'll always track against certain aspects that we've raised and working towards, and again, working through those on a certain cadence. So that, that's sort of a summary of it. It's very specific to that site and those specific risks, though, that have been raised within that heightened due diligence.
I'll follow on with a related question from Owen Bennett of CC & L FG: What are the results of the independent human rights assessments at the Porgera mine? When will these results be published?
Yeah. Thanks, Owen. We had scheduled that independent human rights assessment for earlier this year, as you know, and as we've just mentioned, we opened the mine earlier this year, and the intention was to bring Avanzar, our independent human rights assessors, onto site. As I mentioned in the presentation, in quarter one, there was a state of emergency. And so we postponed that trip. Instead, Avanzar went to our Reko Diq operation and conducted an assessment there that also fed into the environmental and social impact assessment that we're doing. So we swapped the two around, and so they will be out on site. We're working on around October, November for them to be on site to conduct that independent assessment.
And you would've noted on the slide around Porgera that that's one of our commitments that we made, and we have every intention of fulfilling that.
Now, should we take one more? I think we're getting on. No? No, sure, yeah.
I have a few.
Oh, okay. Let's, let's do a few then.
Okay. One from Celia Coulibaly of Manulife: "Can you elaborate a bit more on your view towards ESG raters' assessment of the human rights controversies your business is associated with? What have they missed in their assessment that we, as investors, should be focused on, since they'll still flag you as a fail watchlist under the UNGCC?
Well, I think I'll just take on that because I've covered that in my presentation. And you know, the UNGCC, we're a member of it, and we report to that institution annually, and they've never brought up any issue. So, you know, I think there's a very definite big gap between an opinion that gets placed on social media and a controversy point. And we've been working with various NGOs and rating agencies to address some of these, because... And it's fascinating, when we engage with them, they can't actually deliver the facts. And so, Grant, who spent an enormous amount of time following these things up with the team, can elaborate a little bit more.
But I think it's very important that that's what you hear us doing, is that we're exposing all these claims, dealing with them right up front, and that's the only thing we can do, is continue to communicate. In many cases, we've reached out and invited these people to the sites. It doesn't seem to change their opinion, Grant?
Yeah. Thanks. And I’ll just add that I’m not sure you are necessarily missing anything in terms of this. I think it’s more on the ESG rater side of things. And I think that stems from the fact that the communication is fairly one-sided at the moment. We have reached out on numerous occasions to engage with the ESG raters. And in fact, we’ve hosted a session much like this, but solely dedicated to the ESG raters. Both one-on-one sessions as well as group sessions, where they could ask any questions, and we could provide that information.
I will just say that they've had more interest from some than others, and that engagement has actually got better with some of our ESG raters, and you can see that in the scores. One such rater has recently published their report and has shown that the rating against environmental risk for Barrick has decreased, and is the lowest it's been since they started that rating. And it just so happens that we've been engaging with that particular ESG rater on a regular basis, and there is more of this two-way relationship or communication.
I think that's important because as Mark highlighted, you know, a lot of the raters are forming opinions based on media facts that often aren't followed up, and the veracity of which are not checked. And we, as we've demonstrated, are all about openness, transparency, and honesty, and we will provide that information to the ESG raters because we believe it'll improve their product too, and a product that you as investors are using. So we're continuing to work with that and progressing with that. But I think it is important, as we highlighted in the presentation, there is no link between any of the ESG raters and the UN Global Compact. So I think that is important to note.
I think if you read the fine print on some of the ESG raters, you'll see that they acknowledge that fact. I think what is missing, though, in over and above what I've just mentioned, is the fact that the recommendations need to be applicable. And it goes back to the point that Mark has made, is that they need to understand the situation on the ground to make those recommendations achievable. And some of them that have been put forward are just not achievable. In fact, some of them, if you look at the recommendations they made at North Mara, are legally not possible. And that's an important aspect to note. But, you know, we don't... we obviously don't do this for the ESG raters. We have a strategy, and we're gonna continue with that.
And I think the best course of action is for us to continue engaging, but more importantly, to engage with yourselves and provide you with the facts, so that you can make up your own minds.
Okay, just a question from Camilla Coffey, from Antipodes. Question on Reko Diq. She first says congratulations, firstly on the rhino, rhino relocation project, and she's heard that there's been great success with some baby rhinos being made. The question on Reko Diq, how have you been engaging with government to ensure the success of operations, and how does this differ?... to engage with government in other regions that Barrick is active in? And I'll just carry on with this one. The question on diversity, particularly in the DRC and Papua New Guinea, how do you manage ethnic diversity in, of the teams at Kibali and Porgera, particularly when there may be severe conflict between ethnicities? She mentions the Tutsis and the Hutus.
So I'll kick off, Camilla. I think that you know, you bring up Pakistan or Balochistan, the Reko Diq, that's a great example. You know, when we got there, if you don't work for the army or the government, you're a smuggler. That's about the only other option. And people talk about tribes. This is a couple of hundred kilometers from the Afghan border, and tribes are very small there, and there are many of them.
So when we were negotiating with the Pakistan government, with the Imran Khan's government, to set the framework on how we would go back and reestablish the Reko Diq project, I, along with the traditional leadership, toured the whole region around Reko Diq and met with the elders, the traditional leaders, and presented our plans. At times, we had representation from the federal government in Islamabad, but we always had representatives from the local elected government in Balochistan and, of course, the traditional leaders. It's interesting that in nearly every situation, the frustration voiced was against the decision to cancel the permit, the mining permit for Reko Diq back in 2013, and that desire to see this mine get developed.
I would just point out, too, that the tribe that is actually located on the footprint of Reko Diq took upon itself to look after the Reko Diq infrastructure. And when I got there, back in 2019, the offices in there were still absolutely intact, and even the T-shirts in their cellophane holders were sitting on the shelves. All the jerrycans were there, everything was there, and that tribe had guarded that place for 10 years or just under 10 years. And so there's a, you know, there's a really real desire for employment, and what we've been able to do there is offer that employment and today and we started with education at prim...
at pre-primary school level all the way up to primary, and that's the future, workers and business people for Reko Diq. And again, we, those schools have approximately 50% boys and girls in them. And again, we just encourage them through our community development committees to establish and get their children to school, and our objective is to have every kid under 10 years old at school. And we're very close to achieving that even today. And so, that community embraced that and again, people raise their eyebrows when I tell them that, you know, our schools are 50/50 boys and girls.
And again, if you look at the employment, so far, we've got 200 and just over 200 employees as we start, you know, embark on what we call the initial starter projects. And again, our strategy is to invest in school-going children for the future. Those who have not been at school but are in the sort of teens era age group, we have established technical training colleges and vocational learning, and so that they can also participate in the construction and ultimately the operation of the mine.
And then we've gone to all the universities across Pakistan and canvassed applications for our graduate development program. And what we're looking for is the crème de la crème of young graduates. And the first intake was what is it, nine? nine people, five boys and four girls. And those that was 18 months ago. They are busy working in our mines. They're currently in Argentina, up in the Andes, working at Veladero. And we've just taken on another 19... and the idea is we'll build that cohort up to about 50. And that will be the future middle management of Reko Diq as we build in.
And then, of course, now is, as Grant mentioned, onboarding and what we're managing in the society now is this absolute obsession by everyone to be part of Reko Diq because it gives them a job. And we pay way above the wages in that part of the world, and it's an opportunity to liberate people, both economically and politically. And so, you know, we've and that's gonna, of course, we manage that. We are constantly engaged in every level of authority, starting with the traditional chiefs in the little villages, all the way up through to the actual elected officers, within both regional and national government. So,
I think the point here is that we, I mean, it's such a good example, and we've learned so much. In Kibali, we did the same thing. Remember, we opened a mine up in the middle of the jungle where there was no skill base at all. But today, the mine is run by Congolese, the General Manager is Congolese, and it's actually one of our most automated gold mines in the world, and it's a lot more efficient than even our Nevada mine. So it's a, you know, it's a real example of what you can do if you invest in national skills rather than dragging in expatriates to these remote regions.
And I will pass on to Grant to touch on those, the rest of the other two questions you had.
Yeah, thanks, Camilla. Maybe just to talk around the diversity and in particular, around different ethnicities and how we handle that. I think for us at Barrick, it is quite simple. We have a set of DNA, as we call it, and we always go back to that. You know, one being that open, honest communication, but also that we employ world-class people. And we don't have any targets striving to meet, you know, quotas based on gender, race, or disability, or ethnicity. But at the same time, we recognize that some of these people may have been marginalized, and based on that basis, some challenges around education and other barriers to entry into the workforce. And that's what we work on.
You know, you take, even here in, in Nevada, we have those challenges, and we have the scholarship foundation that has brought a number of our Native American partners into our business that are working here in Nevada. And that's a classic example of how we get over these, some of these barriers and hurdles. So, you know, as I say, I think for us, it's simple. We have a solid set of DNA, and that's always served us well. Be it in developing or developed organizations. And certainly, you know, in Barrick, we don't marginalize based on ethnicity, religion, whatever the case may be.
We are here to hire world-class individuals, and if there are barriers, we will aim to take those down so that we can bring in a representative workforce from our community.
Yeah. Thanks, Grant.
Um-
I think, you know, Camilla, I'll touch on one other point, and that's you brought up, which is very important, is in Papua New Guinea, you know, there's so many different tribes and you have this inherent tribal conflict. And so our approach to that is the induction. As we induct people, you know, you come through that gate, you embrace Barrick's DNA, and we do not tolerate any abuse, any prejudice against anyone. And we absolutely uphold people's privacy. And I must say, I can't think of any on-the-job conflict.
Certainly, you know, outside the fence, maybe, but, and that's a big challenge outside the fence, that, again, we've got a lot of work to do because it's retrograded because of the care and maintenance and the lack of the influence of that mine for a number of years now. But, you know, it's interesting, we are ramping up Porgera. We've got 2,500 employees now on the site, of which most are Papua New Guineans, and 57% are actually from the local community. And again, we were very worried whether we were able to access skills when we ramped that mine up because of the fact that that whole social environment had deteriorated during the our absence there largely.
And so that's been encouraging, but you know, I would be remiss to say that we've got a lot of work to do, albeit that we now have 57% of those 2,500 people going back into the community every year. And the big drive now is to introduce community policing, the establishment of the judiciary back in that region, and also to really reinforce the community structure within the Porgera Valley. So, Lois, I think we should just take one more question now. We've been going at this for two hours.
Yes, sure. I have taken note of all the outstanding questions. Some of the people have asked questions previously. So we could respond in email and offer calls with Grant and Duncan.
Yeah, I think that's a very good idea. And again, we want to be able to answer those questions, and we'll pick up and have one—you know, reach out or send an email and offer to reach out if the written response isn't good enough.
Is that okay?
Sure. Should we close off then?
I believe so.
Right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I really appreciate your time, and you've given us two hours of your time, which is, you know, really, we appreciate that. You know, I think that to address some of the questions again, and that is that the way we deal with our license to operate, our ability to be part of our communities and the countries that we operate in, and also to give our investors and owners comfort that we really do make a difference around the globe, is to be 100% transparent, and to stick to our principles, accepted business ethics driven by our DNA. And so again, I look forward to catching up with some of you.
We've got our quarterly results in Toronto next week, and then we'll also be doing our annual roadshow in November. And again, this year we will be holding an investor day as well during November. So we'll be spending a lot of time in the market and engaging with our stakeholders. So again, thank you for making the time today, and we look forward to continuing this conversation.