Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Pan American Silver Responsible Investor Conference Call, a conversation on ESG. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded.
At any time during the presentation, you can submit your question via the webcast platform only by typing it in the box on the bottom left side of the page and hit Submit Question when done. I would now like to turn the conference over to Siren Fisekci, Vice President, Investor Relations for opening remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator, and welcome everyone to Pan American Silver's Responsible Investing Conference Call, a conversation on ESG. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. For those of you participating on the webcast, we've included a number of slides to support today's discussion. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's call and presentation slides contain certain statements and information that constitute forward-looking statements and information.
Please review the cautionary statements included in our presentation, as well as the risk factors described in our most recent Form 40-F and Annual Information Form. For the formal portion of the call today, we have Michael Steinmann, President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Busby, Chief Operating Officer, Rob Doyle, Chief Financial Officer, and Brent Bergeron, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability.
You will also hear from Matthew Andrews, Vice President, Environment, Monica Moretto, Vice President, Social Sustainability, Diversity, and Inclusion, Christopher Lemon, General Counsel, and Sean McAleer, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Guatemala. Our presentation will cover the following topics:
our vision and sustainability values, our 2019 sustainability highlights, which were covered in detail in our sustainability report released in May this year and available on our website, our operational approach to sustainability, including our response to COVID-19, our sustainability priorities, goals, and results, our management approach and performance of our environmental, social, and governance practices, and we will also take this opportunity to provide an update on our Escobal mine in Guatemala and the ILO 169 consultation process.
At the conclusion of the presentation, we will provide an opportunity to ask questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Pan American Silver's President and CEO, Michael Steinmann, to lead us into this ESG conversation. Michael?
Thank you, Siren. Pan American Silver vision is to be the world's premier silver mining company with a reputation for excellence in discovery, engineering, innovation, and sustainable development. In 2019, we celebrated our 25th anniversary. Our history of building and operating mines throughout the Americas is a testament to our success in managing a sustainable business. Sustainability, in fact, is key to our business strategy.
This strategy includes safe production, the environmentally sound development and operation of assets, and the development of positive long-term relationships with employees, shareholders, communities, and local governments through open and honest communication and ethical and sustainable business practices. Our values set the standard for how we operate as a business. When translated into action, our sustainability values require us to mitigate the effects of our operations and work to protect the ecosystem in and around our mining sites.
They drive us to provide safe and healthy workplace. They inspire us to create long-term economic benefits for our employees, contractors, communities, and host governments. And they motivate us to create the best conditions for communities to thrive after our mines close. Excellence in ESG performance and reporting have long been at the core of our approach to long-term sustainability, and we have been producing sustainability reports for 10 years. As we have grown, our approach to sustainability continues to evolve.
We are focused on enhancing our ESG disclosures and describing how we implement our values. We are proud of our sustainability accomplishments in 2019. We had no significant environmental or social incidents at our operations. We helped improve local access to health services, enabling nearly 9,000 community members to receive medical attention. We launched a new human rights policy and appointed a human rights officer to oversee the policy's implementation and performance.
We deepened our alignment with the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights and with UNICEF Canada's Child Rights and Security Checklist at operations using security guards. We invested in reforestation projects, planting or donating over 410,000 trees to improve soils, create habitats, and capture carbon near our operations and host communities. We also completed our first round of independent tailings dam safety reviews at all operating facilities.
Among primary silver producers, Pan American Silver is the world's second largest producer of silver and holds the largest base of silver reserves globally. Our principal products are silver and gold doré, and zinc, as well as silver-bearing lead and copper concentrates. Silver is an essential and very versatile metal and plays a crucial role in the transition from fossil fuels to a low-carbon economy.
In fact, the largest single industrial use of silver today is in photovoltaic cells used in solar panels, consuming nearly 100 million ounces, or about 10% of the global silver demand in 2019. Silver is used in most electronic components, making it indispensable for an electrified world. It also has strong antibacterial properties and is widely utilized in medical applications and water purification. We are working with the Silver Institute to improve the general understanding of silver's unique and vitally important role in low-carbon energy solutions.
For more information, I recommend visiting the website of the Silver Institute. With that, I will turn the call over to Rob Doyle to provide us an update of the economic benefits generated by the company and to discuss how ESG metrics are incorporated in our executive compensation. Rob, please.
Thank you, Michael. A key element of Pan American Silver's strategy has always been to maintain a very strong balance sheet. This allows us to contribute both directly and indirectly towards meeting our sustainability goals in the regions where we operate. We have also always operated under a highly decentralized business model with well-defined communication channels, delegation of authority and responsibility, while maintaining clear oversight.
This decentralized approach has served us extremely well as we manage risks from the ground up, engendering loyalty and dedication to local relationships and needs. Over 80% of the $1.4 billion of revenue we generated in 2019 was returned to the economies of our host countries, and particularly to our host communities through wages, procurement of services and supplies, direct community investments, and payments to governments. We also hire locally and provide our workforce with competitive wages and benefits.
Last year, 99% of our employees were nationals of the countries where our mines are located. We strive to procure goods and services locally for mine operations and maintenance. In 2019, nearly half of the goods and services were provided by local or regional suppliers. Overall, our operations have business relationships with over 500 small businesses.
Pan American Silver has always seen community-focused programs as essential to success, and we will continue to make sure we leave a legacy of economic benefits that extend beyond the life of our mines. Our compensation program consists of base salary, annual incentive awards, and long-term equity compensation. We use compensation consultants and benchmarking to ensure that our compensation is competitive in the regions where we operate.
Our annual incentive awards provide incentive compensation directly related to achieving short-term objectives, both corporate and operation-specific, which are approved by the board. Because sustainability is core to our business strategy, 35% of our current annual incentive plan is based on ESG metrics. We believe that when leaders are held accountable for the company's ESG performance, it reinforces the importance of sustainable practices at all levels of the organization. With that, I will turn the call over to Steve to discuss our operational approach towards sustainability and provide us an update of our response to COVID-19. Steve.
Thank you, Rob. As Michael pointed out, our approach to sustainability focuses on running clean and efficient operations, minimizing environmental impacts, protecting and even enhancing ecosystems, ensuring safe and healthy workplaces, and collaborating with local communities to create sustainable opportunities that can thrive during operations and after a mine closes. Pan American Silver's greatest strength has always been its people.
As previously mentioned, we take a decentralized approach to running our business, which means our managers are responsible for delivering on the company's operational and sustainability objectives. It is our people who translate our vision and values into actions, who engage and build relationships and trust with local communities. We apply international sustainability best practices at all our operations.
As a member of the Mining Association of Canada, we are implementing their Towards Sustainable Mining framework across all our operations to enhance our sustainability even further.
We activated a company-wide coordinated emergency response plan soon after the WHO characterized COVID-19 as a global pandemic earlier this year in mid-March. Specifically, the response plan established leadership teams and chains of command at each site who were granted the authority, responsibility, and accountability for executing evolving responses specifically aimed at protecting the health and safety of our personnel throughout the organization.
We closely monitor the evolving information provided by our site teams, renowned medical and epidemiological consultants, industry associations, peers, and health authorities in order to adapt a best practice approach for prevention and containment of the COVID-19 virus. By mid-March, our emergency response teams rapidly implemented increased sanitary measures, a work-from-home structure, and severely restricted travel through as much of the organization that was practical.
We suspended operations at our Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia sites and implemented measures to comply with the mandatory directives according to the various government decrees that were passed in response to the pandemic between March and April of this year.
Following government approvals to resume operations at each of those jurisdictions, we implemented extensive sanitary and physical distancing measures, return-to-work health screenings, COVID-19 testing, and, when necessary, contact tracing and quarantining protocols. Our Huarón and Morococha mines in Peru, as well as our Escobal mine in Guatemala, remain on care and maintenance, whereas all our other mines are currently operating under these extensive protocols since authorizations were granted.
Safety is always our top priority, with safe, efficient production being the primary goal at all operations and projects. We strive to prevent workplace injuries through continuously improving our safety systems, training processes, and use of technologies.
We developed an in-house safety pledge and set of cardinal rules in 2017 that established easy-to-understand expectations and rules for safety at our mine sites, which apply to all employees, contractors, and visitors. These pledges and rules are incorporated into our induction training and frequent safety talks. In addition, we launched a serious incident reduction initiative in 2018 that focuses on preventing serious accidents and fatalities through training, site-specific action plans, and providing extensive health and safety leadership training programs to our frontline supervisors.
Overall, we improved both our lost-time injury frequency and severity rates during 2019 over the previous year and met the goals that we had established for each beforehand. However, despite our efforts, we incurred tragic accidents at our Morococha mine in Peru and our Manantial mine in Argentina, which resulted in two fatalities.
We conduct comprehensive investigations of any serious and fatal accident that assess possible factors that contribute direct and indirect causes and develop recommendations to improve our systems and processes throughout the organization in order to prevent a similar accident. We are also expanding our programs to include a behavioral-based approach that is designed to raise each of our personnel's awareness and enhance their abilities to recognize and prevent unsafe acts.
We believe this program will help expand on a culture that encourages and supports workers to consistently make safe choices while performing their duties and continue to encourage them to raise any health and safety concerns to any manager within the organization. With that, I would now like to turn the meeting over to Brent to discuss our sustainability priorities and results. Brent?
Thank you, Steve. As highlighted by Michael and Steve, sustainability is embedded in our vision, values, and business strategy. Corporate policies and standards translate our vision and values into specific sustainability commitments. Our approach to sustainability focuses on operating in an ethical and responsible manner in compliance with applicable laws and industry best practices at all of our sites.
Our aim is to demonstrate how our approach allows us to manage risk, drive value, and operate successfully over the long term. In 2019, we substantially increased the size of the company with a Tahoe resource acquisition and expanded our geographic reach. So it is vital for us to implement management systems that guide and enable all of our operations to consistently meet global sustainability standards and stakeholder expectations. We evaluate company-wide risks through our quarterly operational and country risk assessments to identify and minimize events that could impact our operations.
We have long held ESG performance as a fundamental part of our business and welcome the growing interest in responsible investing. It makes good sense for investors to understand how a mining company manages its key sustainability risks and leverages its opportunities. Excellence in ESG reporting is a central component of Pan American Silver's approach to long-term sustainability. Our future goal is to continuously improve our performance and to further enhance our ESG engagement and disclosure.
Engagement is a core practice at our company. Our business success is dependent on establishing positive relationships and trust with our communities of interest. By listening, we learn about the issues that are important to them. This enables us to adjust the way we work to manage these issues going forward. It also allows us to align our goals and priorities with those of our local stakeholders.
In 2019, we asked our communities of interest to rank the sustainability topics most important to them. Other factors considered in our materiality assessment included global trends that are significant to the mining industry and Pan American Silver's business priorities. Our main area of focus that resulted from this exercise is summarized in this slide. In executing our business strategy, we focused on managing performance across the areas of sustainability most important to our company and to our communities of interest.
Our operations conduct an extensive annual process of setting sustainability performance goals, which fosters understanding and commitment by those who carry out the day-to-day business activities driven by a decentralized approach to our business. Overall, our performance in 2019 was good, particularly considering the large integration of the Tahoe operations and personnel.
On the environmental front, we implemented innovative projects that meaningfully reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at our operations as compared to business as usual. We continue to expand our community engagement activities through greater participation in the design of our social development projects. Overall, we accomplished 10 of our 12 meaningful sustainability goals in 2019, missing the mark on safety, as Steve previously mentioned, and on our important inclusion and diversity goal.
Over 2019, we emphasized the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women with the objective of a 20% increase in the number of new hires and promotions filled by women at the senior management level. We achieved a 15% increase and made some notable improvements in some key areas, which have firmly established our path forward towards meaningful change in the future.
For example, we undertook a review of the capacity and skill of our female employees, and this resulted in an important increase in the number of women in management roles in Peru, Mexico, and Argentina. We are continuing to promote gender inclusiveness across the company and remain focused on achieving a meaningful change going forward. Pan American Silver is committed to delivering sustainable value to all of our stakeholders.
One way to implementing sustainability best practices is to partner with reputable industry associations, NGOs, and adhering to external best practices that drive our performance. Through our membership in the Mining Association of Canada, we are currently implementing Towards Sustainable Mining protocols and frameworks, a world-class management standard designed to help mining companies address and manage key sustainability issues.
During the next two years, we will fully comply with the TSM requirements, and we will publicly report on our performance. We are also a member of the World Economic Forum's Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, which is playing an important role in the transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy. I'm also happy to announce that in July of this year, we became a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact.
This formalizes our commitment to driving global sustainable development and contributing to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Starting in 2021, we will report annually on our progress on embedding the United Nations' Global Compact principles into our business operations. Our participation in these groups provides a forum for dialogue with our peers, preparing us for potential challenges and opportunities, as well as exposing our teams to the industry's best practices related to sustainability. And now, at this time, I'll turn it over to Matt to discuss our environmental approach and performance. Matt.
Thanks, Brent. Environmental stewardship is central to our business strategy and objectives for our activities at all stages, from exploration and development through operations to ultimate mine closure. We implement our own corporate environmental standards as well as leading external standards at all our operations. We actively work to prevent environmental incidents and have not registered any significant environmental incident at our mines since we increased internally coordinated auditing and prevention programs in 2012.
Water management is a fundamental activity at our mines, and we continually look for opportunities to improve the efficiency of the way we use water and protect downstream water quality. As an example, in 2019, we completed an upgrade to a mine water treatment facility at San Vicente in Bolivia, which allowed the effluent of that plant to be reused within the process plant, thereby reducing our reliance on external water sources by more than half and reducing energy use for pumping.
At our newly acquired Peruvian operations, La Arena and Shahuindo, we established water management committees and made significant investments in improvements to surface water management systems. We have been disclosing our greenhouse gas emissions for nearly 10 years and have further increased our efforts related to climate change and public disclosure.
As Michael noted, the silver and metals that we produce are key components in solar panels, batteries, and many other technologies required for the low-carbon economy. At the same time, we recognize that we must produce these metals with the lowest possible carbon footprint.
Last year, we improved our reporting by adding Scope 3 value chain emission estimates and information related to physical climate risks. In the past four years, we have implemented meaningful projects to reduce energy and emissions, particularly at our operations in Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, where projects collectively reduced over 35,000 tons CO2 equivalent of annual greenhouse gas emissions compared to business as usual.
We are supporters of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, and next year, we will expand our reporting in line with the TCFD and develop more quantifiable short and medium-term emissions goals. Our objective related to biodiversity is to protect species and habitats during development and operation and maximize the creation of habitat for native species during mine closure. Last year, we completed the active reclamation of our Alamo Dorado mine in Mexico with over 200 ha of land reclaimed.
In Argentina, we've completed over 80 ha of concurrent reclamation at our Manantial Espejo mine. Going forward, we will focus on post-closure work at Alamo Dorado and applying the lessons learned from that project at our other mines. Safe management of tailings and the prevention of incidents is a priority for our industry and our team at Pan American Silver.
We implement leading tailings management standards at all our operations and in 2019 successfully completed the first round of our ongoing program of independent third-party safety reviews of our operating tailings facilities. We also expanded public disclosure on our inventory of tailings facilities, which is included in our annual sustainability report and the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiatives Global Portal.
We encourage innovation throughout the organization, and a good example is an in-house pilot real-time online tailings facility monitoring project in Mexico, which we plan to expand to our other operations. Through the Mining Association of Canada, we participated in the Global Tailings Review and are currently evaluating the new standard against our current standards and systems. With that, I will turn the call over to Monica to discuss our social performance and provide us with an update on our inclusion and diversity approach. Monica.
Thanks, Matt. We understand that mining companies can have significant positive and negative impacts on host communities. Our social management framework provides the processes and tools we need to recognize and manage our actual and perceived impacts, understand needs and interests, and identify opportunities for long-term local investment. Engaging, planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating are core components of our approach to social management.
Our response mechanisms and annual consultation with all stakeholders is part of the foundation for many of our initiatives. Monitoring of our programs and social performance through biannual social audits and feedback is central to our management approach. Our audit framework is based on the ISO 26000 guidance on social responsibility and was updated in 2019 by incorporating aspects related to human rights and security, child labor, forced labor, supply chain, and local contractors' practices, among others.
We like host communities to see our presence as a positive factor in their lives. A positive relationship can be achieved with meaningful participation and contribution at our sites from local communities and governments aimed at strengthening the legacy of sustainability for future generations to come. During 2019, we contributed over $14 million on community investments.
All our initiatives are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations member states in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. Our investments target benefits obtained where we co-create socioeconomic development programs focused on education, health, local procurement, and alternative economic opportunities.
We create middle and high-income jobs, skilled trades expertise, advanced education, career development, and other business opportunities. We invest in and upgrade local infrastructure and services such as roads, power, schools, health facilities, water, and sanitation in partnership with local governments. We work with third parties such as local or international NGOs, when possible, to increase transparency in the delivery and administration of the programs we co-host.
We are currently supporting 16 long-term socioeconomic development programs in our host communities in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. Although some programs are momentarily suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect all to be up and running again in the coming months at the request of the communities. As an example of our programs, I would like to highlight the nutritional greenhouse program in Bolivia, where we provided supplies, training, and capacity building to 436 community members from 11 local communities for sustainable food production, access to fresh produce, and improved family nutrition.
The program is currently in its fifth year and was developed at the request of community members based on their concerns regarding access to food security for vulnerable groups. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been engaging with communities to understand the impact of this crisis and to adapt programs to align with their needs.
We have pledged $2 million in donations of food, medical equipment, personal protective equipment, and sanitation supplies, as well as facilitating access to education to help communities activate their pandemic response plans. As an example, we recently donated an oxygen plant that was urgently needed by the local health system in the Cajabamba province in Peru. We will continue listening to communities and supporting their needs, particularly for the vulnerable people within those communities.
The COVID-19 crisis has further exposed social inequities and increased vulnerabilities we observe among women, elder population, and poverty-ridden families, including children, around our operations.
To support the well-being and rights of children, we have been working with UNICEF Canada for several years and are very pleased to announce today that we have entered into a three-year partnership commitment that will contribute $1.5 million to support children affected by COVID-19 in the Latin American countries where we operate, in most cases, due to lack of hygiene and sanitation infrastructure in the areas where they live.
We know that this program will provide significant relief to those who are facing incredibly challenging times during this pandemic. This plan will continue after COVID-19 with the main focus on hygiene and sanitation at schools. The COVID-19 crisis certainly has reinforced our commitment to raise awareness around marginalized groups.
We're doing this not only through our community programs but also through our workplace initiatives. Local community members make up our workforce as well as the businesses that provide our mines with necessary goods and services. It is important for us to monitor and promote respect, collaboration, and inclusiveness at all of our operations.
This year, we're launching a diversity awareness campaign, and in 2021, we will be introducing in our operations the Building Respect Together program that will complement the work started this year. With that, I'll turn it over to Christopher to provide us an update on our human capital development, governance, and human rights approach. Christopher.
Thanks, Monica. Our approach to human capital development focuses on attracting, retaining, and developing the best talent. Succession planning is key to our success. The board reviews our succession plan on an annual basis. We run a leadership development program for management and prospective management employees. We also provide training and education opportunities to help employees advance in their roles and careers.
Our organization is particularly remarkable for its ability to retain our employees, many of them being with the company for decades and have progressed their careers into senior roles. Across the company, our turnover rate in 2019 was approximately 11%. Most of our senior management team has been together for over 15 years. We are also in the process of centralizing our internal employee grievance systems to provide our employees with a mechanism for raising concerns or issues without fear or reprisal.
As a TSX-listed and NASDAQ-listed public company, our governance program is strictly regulated and monitored by Canadian and US regulators, as well as by our institutional shareholders, proxy advisory firms, including ISS and Glass Lewis, NGOs, and increasingly by ESG advisory organizations. Currently, our board has seven members, six of whom are independent, including one female. Our chairman is independent. We also have a separate lead director who is also independent.
Our board has appointed five board committees, including a fully independent Audit Committee, a Human Resources Compensation Committee, which is responsible for executive pay, and a Nominating and Governance Committee, which is responsible for corporate governance. The company maintains a say-on-pay policy, which was 94% supportive in 2020, and we have a majority voting policy.
We have a mature compliance function, which is guided by our board-level Global Code of Ethical Conduct and Global Anti-Corruption Policy, and a senior management team that is absolutely committed to our culture of integrity. In 2019, we also approved a Supplier Code of Conduct, and we are in the process of implementing a global program to enhance our supplier due diligence processes.
As part of our compliance function, we have an independent and anonymous whistleblower program that provides an online and telephone reporting mechanism for directors, officers, and employees. All complaints are reviewed and investigated under my supervision. A detailed description of our governance program can be found in our latest management information circular for our 2020 AGM.
Respect for human rights is a core principle at Pan American Silver that has guided our relationship with our communities throughout our 26-year history of operating in the Americas. In 2019, our board approved our Global Human Rights Policy, which formalizes our approach to fostering a positive human rights culture throughout our organization and directs our workforce to prevent, minimize, or mitigate adverse impacts from our activities on our employees, communities, and other stakeholders.
To further develop and oversee our human rights program, we appointed an experienced and accomplished human rights professional to the role of human rights officer based in Guatemala. She has recently played a key role in our response to COVID-19, including ensuring all our sites comply with the United Nations Development Programme human rights due diligence and COVID-19 human rights checklist.
Going forward, we will continue conducting additional assessments of our alignment with the voluntary principles and UNICEF's Child Rights and Security checklist and continue to roll out human rights training across the company. With that, I'll turn it over to Sean to provide us with an update on Escobal. Sean?
Thanks, Christopher. The Escobal mine is located in the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores, near Guatemala City. With a footprint of less than 1 sq km, the underground silver mine is built to produce silver-rich zinc and lead concentrates through a selective flotation process. The mining process uses state-of-the-art paste backfill, filter tailings, and a dry stack tailings facility, minimizing water consumption, waste generation, and environmental disturbance.
During operations, the mine provided over 1,500 direct jobs and is a major contributor to the economy through indirect employment, spending with local suppliers, royalties, and tax contributions. The operation is currently suspended, awaiting completion of a court-ordered government-led ILO 169 Indigenous Peoples consultation process. As a participant in this process, we are cooperating with and fully supported of the consultation process, which has faced some disruptions due to a change in government and now the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
We continue to prepare for the process by organizing communication materials and have conducted indigenous relations training with the team that will take part. We look forward to an inclusive process with broad participation and respect of Xinka Peoples' rights consultation.
Meanwhile, we focus on current maintenance and community relations activities, safely completing the actions required by our approved environmental management plan, fulfilling existing community commitments, and responding to the many requests for support and information we receive from the communities during suspension.
Since the integration of the asset to our portfolio in February 2019, we conducted a review of the project history and concluded that our values-based approach, starting with the management team and workforce, could be key to successfully building positive relations with local communities around the mine. Our review uncovered a list of areas for improvement.
We identified a set of values to work more effectively, build trust, and improve our relationships with all stakeholders. Our team works every day to show our commitment to these values through our actions. These requirements extend to our contractors and partners, and during our first year, we've witnessed a positive cultural change within our organization in Guatemala.
Given the high level of interest in the Escobal mine, we've made several changes to our local communications and engagement programs, as well as updating our grievance system and continuing to focus on listening to our communities of interest. The recent COVID-19 crisis has required us to significantly reduce and modify our engagement activities to comply with protocols designed to prevent transmission of the virus.
Our first focus following the acquisition was establishing quality human rights and security policies, programs, and practices. We mobilized new management, completely revised our approach to contract security, updated our emergency response plan, and continued to develop protocols for peaceful alternatives in the management of conflicts. We also continue to implement recommendations from our security and human rights assessment that was conducted following the acquisition.
We've made significant progress in the deployment of Towards Sustainable Mining protocols at site and are formalizing key partnerships with the municipality of San Rafael Las Flores, as well as other municipalities, to increase transparency of royalty payments and document the use of funds. We are working on a partnership with the United Nations Development Programme in Guatemala to enhance government capacity and measure progress towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.
Also, we facilitated the launch of a participatory environmental monitoring program in partnership with the School of Engineering of the University of San Carlos. We believe that responsible mine developments can be accomplished by fostering positive long-term relationships with communities and local governments through open and honest communication and ethical and sustainable business practices.
We are excited with the progress we have seen locally with the communities surrounding the Escobal mine, and our team looks forward to participating in and supporting the government-led ILO 169 consultation process. With that, I'll turn it over to Michael for closing remarks. Michael?
Thank you, Sean. It is imperative that we continue to strive for excellence by demonstrating sustainability leadership and delivering on our ESG programs and commitments. We have a sector-leading cohesive executive team that brings a depth of knowledge and experience to all aspects of our business and allows us to successfully advance early-stage projects through construction, operation, and closure.
Throughout our 26-year history, our people have been focused on providing value to our stakeholders and contributing to the well-being of our host communities. Furthermore, we strive to achieve an inclusive work environment where all are treated fairly and respectfully. We are committed to advancing racial equity and inclusion by signing on to the BlackNorth Initiative and by supporting the Viola Desmond Chair in Social Justice.
In response to growing demands for transparency around environmental, social, and governance performance and reporting, we are also looking to strengthen relationships with our ESG-focused investors. We want to demonstrate to our investors and to all our stakeholders that we are continuing efforts to decrease project risks by applying the highest ESG standards across the organization, and we look forward to creating more opportunities for dialogue in the future. With that, we will be happy to answer submitted questions. I'll turn it over to Siren to help us moderate the Q&A portion of this call. Siren?
Thanks, Michael. As a reminder, you can only submit your questions via the webcast platform by typing it into the box on the bottom left side of the page and by hitting Submit Question when done. The first question is to provide an update on internal quarterly risk reporting.
Okay. Thank you, Siren.
Relating to social and environmental issues.
Thanks, Siren. Thanks for the question. I will pass it on to Brent to answer. Brent, please.
Thank you, Michael. One of the processes that we've currently put in place starting in 2019 was actually to start looking at our risk assessment from the ground up at all of our sites. It includes different areas such as legal, environmental, social, industry risk, community risk, and we're trying to do this to get our people to start looking at how these types of risks can affect our business going forward and how this information can actually be transferred to our corporate site to be able to have a better reporting system and allow us at the corporate site to be able to support and guide our sites in terms of being able to reduce that long-term overall risk.
It's important to us to make sure that these types of risks are seen as something that can be identified, managed, and mitigated over the long term and make sure that our teams are responding adequately.
Thanks, Brent. We have another question here. If Pan American had the opportunity to make one of its mining units carbon neutral while at the same time having a meaningful direct impact on three Sustainable Development Goals at no incremental cost or risk, would you seize it?
I'll pass it on to Matt, and maybe Steve has some input there as well, but maybe Matt, you want to start with that?
Siren, Michael. Yeah. I mean, if there was zero risk and zero cost, for sure. But I think the question of, I mean, the question raises some bigger issues about future targets for emissions across the company, and that's something that we've been working on for many years at Pan American Silver.
Basically, our approach is to set targets based on real viable projects at each of our operations in any given year and looking forward to medium-term goals as well. So I guess the question regarding risk and viability is something that we build into our target setting for greenhouse gas emissions as part of our business model. I don't know, Steve, if you want to add to that?
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Matt. This is Steve. Just to add, I think we have a very interesting opportunity before us with the La Colorada Skarn project, and our chairman and our CEO and the entire board is very focused on using the absolute most modern technologies in the development of that mine. And we will be looking very closely at electrification and looking towards a carbon-neutral development for that operation.
It's a very exciting chance for us to kind of showcase some of what the mining industry can do and what Pan American can achieve. So we're anxious as that develops to kind of reveal a potential carbon-neutral development for that operation. Thank you.
Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Matt. It was mentioned that steps are taken to address fatalities. What exactly has been changed, amended, or improved to address the two fatalities and ensure better safety going forward?
Yeah, thank you for the question. I'm sure, Steve, you can address that, please.
Yes, Michael. Thank you. Yeah, these were very tragic accidents that occurred in 2019. One was a case of some ground conditions, some unforeseen poor ground conditions that we ran into, and our support systems had failed to adequately protect. We definitely increased our geotechnical baseline data collection on all our mines now ahead of mining to better understand potential ground conditions that were unforeseen.
In the other case, in the case of Morococha, this was a case of an unsafe act by an employee that we focused very, very hard on preventing unsafe acts, and what we're focused on is launching a couple of pilot programs that are aimed at behavioral-based safety culture improvements.
And we're trying to improve the culture that everybody's actions, as they go to perform their duties at the mine, they think about beforehand, and they think about following procedures, following policies that are designed to protect them and the people around them, their safety.
We're pretty excited about some of the early results we've seen from one of the pilot programs, particularly down in Peru, and we hope to expand that over the next 12-24 months across all our operations. But we think that is going to be key and fundamental in eliminating these kind of very life-threatening and disabling accidents going forward.
Thanks, Steve. How has the COVID pandemic affected relations between the company and local communities? Are there opportunities to strengthen these ties by helping communities keep themselves safe?
Of course, COVID was, and it is still, a huge impact to the entire world and to all of us. Any business and any person on this planet is affected by this, and that's, of course, including the company, all our stakeholders, including all the communities. Maybe Monica, you can give us some more detail on this question, please, or the answer.
Thank you, Michael. Yeah, well, these have been really trying times for everybody, obviously, all over the world. I think at the beginning, the uncertainty obviously created some situations where we had to quickly adjust. We've been working with all communities, listening to them, what their concerns are, and I think by now we're actually in a good space. We've been working with them really, really hard to help them with the things that they need at the moment, especially.
So for that, we have shifted a little for this month what we usually do, but the programs on the ground have been suspended, but most of them now, they're being reinstated, all the economic development programs. We are also working with the local governments as well. It's important to have everybody's voice and understand what they're going through. We're all on this together, definitely.
Thanks, Monica. This one might be one you could respond to as well. How do you define or identify the communities of interest that you engage with?
Well, Monica, you can.
That's a good question. Yeah, sorry, Michael.
Go ahead, Monica.
Yeah. That is a good question. I think that definitely there is a time when you have to define them through the baselines and through the identification of the processes during the EIA. But in regular times, it is, once it's defined, I don't think that they change much on what those communities are. We might see at times that we ended up working with some other communities that weren't there on the list at the beginning, and that sometimes changes. It's a dynamic group.
I would say that it's important to understand that communities want to be identified and want to work with us, and that's the most important thing. So once they put themselves on the list and they want to work with us, obviously, there is an opportunity to discuss and see if there is an opportunity to work. Most of our programs are not only local.
Also, we try to make sure that they're in conjunction with regional and local programs as well. So it's not that we're completely separated. We're always working together with communities and local governments.
Thanks, Monica. Could you please give an indication of timelines for the completion of the ILO 169 consultation process? Which approach does Pan American take in order to end the legacy of the Escobal mine?
I'll start, and then I will hand it over to Sean. I'm sure if you followed the process since the purchase of Tahoe Resources that closed at least more than one and a half years ago now, I have been very, very clear and consistent that there is no timing or timeline that we can point to on the process.
The process is run by the Ministry of Mines in Guatemala, and we are just a party to it, and I don't have a timeline for it. We made very clear from the beginning that it's very important to us to do this right and to take the time to listen and to do the right steps here to move this forward, but I will hand it over to Sean. Sean, if you want to add a few more details here, please.
Yeah. I think the key issues are really around some of the timing, the changes of government, the COVID crisis now. All these factor into when the consultation might start. There's clearly no initiation date yet, and there's no timeline for completion of that. And so that's the first activity that needs to take place.
As far as relations with the communities, there's a lot of different stakeholders in Guatemala. Certainly, there are concerns about the environment. There are concerns about water. There are a lot of concerns about employment and about the economy right now as well. So this is not just the groups around the mine, but some of the extended areas farther out that have voiced concerns and want to know from the company what we can do to give them better information, be more transparent, manage the transparency of royalties and use of funds, as I mentioned in the call.
But all these will take time. But I think the values-based approach we're using has been very successful already at opening up some doors and having the dialogue and the conversations to build trust and to understand some of the ways we can work together with the communities and different stakeholders around the mine.
Thanks, Sean. You have really improved your disclosure in the last year. How did you come to the conclusion that you have zero social conflicts at your operations in light of the ongoing conflict at Escobal?
That's a lot of work. I agree that goes into the sustainability report. By the way, this is already the tenth year that we publish that report, so it's nothing new to Pan Am. I mentioned that already in my remarks. Monica is very, very active on that report, obviously, together with Brent and Matt. Monica, do you want to give some more details here?
Yes, Michael, thank you. I want to thank whoever posed the question because this is not the first time we hear it in the last few months, and we have received feedback on the way we define this particular indicator, so we are actually in the process to reassess how we report on these grievances and if they occur, and we definitely appreciate all feedback and are committed to updating this. Like I said, we're working on it, so probably in the next few months, you're going to see the changes.
Thanks, Monica. I'm just going to pose another one regarding the Escobal mine here. It's on the water management strategy for the mine. Have they drilled water wells? What steps have been taken for the watershed?
Like in every mine and every project, of course, water and the use of water is a very important and crucial part of the planning. A lot of planning went in when the mine has been built, of course, and there's a dry stack tailings, mostly recovering the water for the operations from the tailings. But I'll pass it down to Matt. Matt, please.
Sure. Thanks, Michael. Yeah, as Michael mentioned, Escobal itself, the operation of the mine design is highly water efficient. I think if it were operating, it would be our most water-efficient mine.
It also has the best practice technology in terms of water treatment for protecting water quality downstream, and the mine also improves access for downstream water users, so there are irrigators downstream of the mine that use water from the catchment, and the operation of the mine, if it were operating, improves access for those water users. And in the past, the company definitely has invested in infrastructure for water access for local communities.
I think at this time, in terms of local communities, and perhaps Sean wants to add to this, we're really in the dialogue and listening phase, and at this point, we're not making any investments such as drilling wells or anything like that. But that's definitely things that run the table for the future, potentially.
Yeah, I don't have anything to add, Matt. Really, you hit all the main points there, and I think it's key that the consultation process continues, and that's where the concerns will come out and the information will come out about the impacts, the perceived impacts of water use, and so it's an exciting opportunity for us to see also the different strategies we can use to increase water availability in the area, so I'm looking forward to that process when it happens.
Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Matt. What is renewable energy's contribution to the overall energy mix for the company? Any policies on renewable energy?
Steve, could you give us some details, please, on the energy mix we're using right now?
Yeah. Actually, I think Matt has those figures available. Matt, do you want to answer that?
Yeah. Sure, Steve. That's a very good question. It's something that we haven't been splitting out in our GRI sustainability reports and our disclosure. And we have noted that one, and next year's report will include a disaggregation of renewable energy. And I don't have the exact figures right in front of me, but we can get back to the caller on that. But it is actually significant, especially in Canada.
In Timmins' operation, renewable energy is important in the grid mix, also in Peru and in Guatemala as well. So yeah, I don't have the exact numbers, but we can certainly get back to the caller on that.
And if I could add to Matt's points, we are seeing generally across the board, and all of our renewable energy use at this stage is through our Scope 2 emissions where we tap into national power grids. And we are seeing across the board increases every year in the renewable energy mix on all of our grid power systems that supply our mines that are tapped to the grid. The only mine that provides its own power today is down at Manantial Espejo in Argentina.
But the other ones, we're seeing more and more renewable mix and more and more opportunities for us to tie up power purchase agreements directly with 100% renewable power producers that we're starting to take advantage of, particularly in Mexico and, as Matt mentioned, up in Canada and also in Peru.
Hello, Siren?
With that, we thank you again for your participation in this environmental, social, and governance conversation. We've come to the end of the allotted time. If you would like further details on what we discussed today or have any other questions, please feel free to contact Brent or Monica at csr@panamericansilver.com. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for calling. Have a good day.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.