Good morning, and welcome to Newmont's Environmental, Social and Governance Briefing. All participants will be in listen only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jessica Largent, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and thank you for joining Newmont's first ESG briefing today. Joining us on the call today are Gary Goldberg, President and Chief Executive Officer Doctor. Elaine Dorwood King, Executive Vice President of Sustainability and External Relations Tom Palmer, Chief Operating Officer and Nancy Buese, Chief Financial Officer. They and other members of our executive team will be available to answer questions at the end of the presentation. Turning to Slide 2.
Before we go further, please take a moment to review the cautionary statements shown here and refer to our SEC filings, which can be found on our website at newmont.com. Also on our website, you can find a link to our 2017 Beyond the Mine annual sustainability report, which covers our sustainability strategy and performance in detail. In today's briefing, we will share some key highlights. I will now turn it over to Doctor. Elaine Dorwood King for a safety share to kick us off.
Thank you, Jessica. As part of Newmont's commitment to safety, we begin every meeting with a Safety Share. This is part of our safety culture that we commit to each and every day. For today's safety share, we will touch on 1 of the 17 sustainable development goals that Newmont has chosen to focus on, goal number 6 for clean water and sanitation. Around the world, more than 800,000,000 people lack access to an acceptable source of water.
To put this 800,000,000 people into context, there are more people with access to mobile phones than people with access to working toilets and adequate sanitation. This lack of fresh water and sufficient sanitation creates a considerable global health crisis that contributes to 8% of deaths worldwide. This crisis is especially tragic as it relates to children's health, where every 2 minutes, a child under 5 perishes and every 1 minute, a newborn dies from diseases caused by dirty water and poor sanitation. There are also 443,000,000 school days lost due to water related illnesses around the world. Recognizing the vital nature of clean water and sanitation, Newmont will contribute to SDG 6 by proactively managing risks in the watersheds where we operate, including promoting better education and awareness of water related issues and the safe management of water resources, working as water stewards to sustain the water balance and to ensure adequate supply for all water users, and creating local partnerships to expand the access to water and sanitation.
Water plays a significant role in how we operate, and we understand the responsibility we have in supporting SDG 6 and seeking a future that sustainably manages this precious resource across our global footprint.
Thanks for that share, Elaine. Turning to the agenda on Slide 4. On our call today, Gary will begin with an overview of our sustainability strategy and its business context. Elaine, Tom and Nancy will then cover our environmental, social and governance approach and performance. Gary will then close with a few comments before opening it up for questions and further discussion.
And now, I'll turn it over to Gary on Slide 5.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. Mining is a long term business and our ability create value over time rests on our ability to operate responsibly and sustainably. I've been a miner for more than 35 years. One of the most gratifying parts of my career has been to witness and to help drive a steady transformation in the way the industry contributes to sustainable development. Across that timeframe, the concept of sustainability has evolved as well as a product of ongoing engagement and consensus.
We scheduled this briefing to continue the conversation. While we cover our operational and financial performance every quarter, today we want to focus in on the environmental, social and governance practices that underpin that performance. We'll share highlights of what we're doing to align our practices with our stakeholders' values and expectations and where we're headed in the future with a focus on our work to minimize our environmental impact and collaborate on resolving longer term resource shortages to improve people's health and safety inside and outside the gate and create opportunities and value for the many rather than the few and to live up to our stakeholders' standards and expectations so we can continue to earn the right to operate and to grow. I'm proud to say that about 70% of Newmont shares outstanding are held by signatories to the principles for responsible investing. That means we share a belief that profitability and I'll start with a look at how we approach sustainability on Slide 6.
I'll start with a look at how we approach sustainability on Slide 6. Our business strategy is based on 3 pillars, each of which relies on our ability to operate responsibly and sustainably. The first pillar is to deliver superior operational execution or more simply put to run our mines as safely and efficiently as possible. The foundation of every well run business is a commitment to continuous improvement driven by standards, systems and targets. For instance, each of our operations and each of our site leaders is accountable for lowering injury rates, water usage and emissions, executing concurrent reclamation and meeting commitments to our host communities.
The second pillar of our strategy is to sustain a global portfolio of long life assets, which gives us the means to create long term value. Expanding our operations and building or buying new ones requires us to manage environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities proactively. For example, we worked for more than 10 years to secure our social license to operate before we our first ounce of gold at the new Merian mine in Suriname. That license takes the form of a cooperation agreement with the local Pemakan people and spells out our commitments to hire and purchase locally and to restore land disturbed by small scale miners in Suriname and to give them the new technologies like simple gravity circuits to process gold without using mercury. The 3rd pillar of our business strategy is to lead the gold sector in profitability and responsibility.
We believe that leading performance as defined by our stakeholders and trusted institutions is the clearest path to establishing Newmont as the employer and developer of choice and ultimately the preferred gold equity investment. Turning to Slide 7 for a brief look at our framework. The foundation of our sustainability management framework is a set of global policies that describe our guiding philosophy and commitments. These policies are posted on our website and cover among other topics, sustainability and stakeholder engagement. The next level up are the strategies we put in place to proactively manage sustainability issues from water and climate change to human rights and inclusion and the standards and procedures we use to drive a consistent global approach.
Moving up the pyramid, we've also put in place systems to drive efficiency and cross functional collaboration, metrics and indicators to track our performance and improvement targets based on what matters most to our stakeholders. Finally, we hold ourselves accountable for results, acknowledge where we have room for improvement and work to build trust by transparently reporting on our performance. Turning to Slide 8 for a look at our priorities. We focus on managing risk and creating value in 3 major areas. Environmental, which Elaine will cover in more detail, where we work to minimize our operations impacts on air, water and land and resolve longer term resource challenges social, which Tom will cover, where we focus on improving lives, upholding human rights and creating shared value and governance, which Nancy will discuss, where our goals are to meet expectations, manage risks and uphold leading standards.
In keeping with this focus, we prioritize the following 5 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, good health and well-being, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, decent work and economic growth, and partnering with stakeholders to achieve the goals. Turning to Slide 9 for a look at how these priorities translate into action. As I mentioned earlier, our license to operate is underpinned by our environmental, social and governance performance and a reputation for doing things right. We established a robust set of sustainability targets for 2017 and met the vast majority of them, including completing human rights risk assessments, increasing female representation in our leadership ranks, improving local employment and procurement, and meeting our community commitments. We also met targets to lower freshwater use and complete planned reclamation, and we remain on track to lower our greenhouse gas emissions intensity.
We fell short however on our target to lower injury rates by 10%. Finally, we were able to resolve 100% of community complaints and grievances within 30 days at 11 of our operations, but narrowly missed this target at Yanacocha, where we resolved 97% within 30 days. As you can see, our operations are anchored in 4 regions where we have the stability and resources we need to continue investing over time. More than 70% of our production and about the same amount of our reserves are located in the United States and Australia. We continue to fund organic growth to sustain future production and improve returns.
And we maintain a robust exploration distinguished by a world class team with a solid track record of discovery, proprietary technology that allows us to assess prospects more accurately and efficiently and the premium we place on applying sustainability principles before any exploration begins. Our portfolio and prospects give us the means to maintain stable production and returns over the next decade and beyond. Turning it to Slide 10. Leading environmental, social and governance performance supports growth by allowing us to operate more effectively in a broad range of jurisdictions, secure permits and investment agreements in a timely manner and compete effectively to develop new lines. In fact, our reputation for leading sustainability performance helped us secure the social acceptance we need to build our newest mines, Merian in Suriname and Long Canyon in Nevada.
Forged a partnership with Continental to help them develop the high grade Veritica gold project in Colombia and to develop new gold prospects like Plateau in the Canadian Yukon. Summing up my introduction on Slide 11. Newmont has been a profitable and sustainable business since it was founded in 1921 and our goal is to continue that performance for another century or more. We haven't always gotten things right, but we're constantly learning and applying what we learn so we can continue to invest in long term sustainability strategies, develop the next generation of leaders and operations and make a positive contribution to people and economies. In 2017, we emerged as the gold sector leader in terms of market capitalization and free cash flow generation.
We are also honored to be recognized as the top mining company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the 3rd consecutive year and to be named to The Wall Street Journal's top 250 best managed companies. Newmont was also ranked as one of the world's most admired companies by Fortune Fortune Magazine based on the quality of our management team and our strong performance in the areas of social responsibility, long term investment, people management and innovation. This recognition speaks to the caliber of our team as well as our success in executing our strategy and living our values, but it does not relieve us of an ongoing responsibility to understand the needs and expectations of our stakeholders or to bring our resources to bear in resolving the long term challenges we face as an industry and a society. With that introduction, please turn to Slide 12 and I'll introduce Doctor. Elaine Dorward King, our Executive Vice President of Sustainability and External Relations to talk about our environmental approach and performance.
Elaine has more than 30 years experience in the mining, chemical and engineering consulting sectors and is the architect of Newmont's sustainability strategy. She is an acknowledged expert, author and speaker in this field and I'll touch on just a few of her notable achievements. At Newmont, she led the charge to forge an historic conservation agreement with federal and state agencies that balances business and biodiversity priorities across 1,500,000 acres of land in Nevada. In her prior position as Managing Director of Richards Bay Minerals, a titanium dioxide mine in South Africa, she delivered a step change in safety performance and finalized a 20 year mineral rights agreement. And before that, she created risk based proactive strategies, standards and systems for Rio Tinto as the Global Head of Health, Safety and Environment.
Over to Elaine.
Thank you, Gary. Our approach to environmental sustainability helps us manage risk and create shared value. Turning to Slide 13. Our environmental approach is broad and comprehensive, but today we're going to focus on how we are taking action to combat global climate change, implementing our global water strategy to move from water management to water stewardship and proactively and inclusively managing our approach to closure and reclamation. Let's start with climate change on Slide 14.
Communities around the globe have experienced extreme weather events relating to changing climates and we must address potential impacts to our business, suppliers, workers and operations. We work to fulfill our commitments through our Global Energy and Climate Strategy, which supports the International Council on Mining and Metals, ICMM, position statement on climate change and the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The 5 pillars of our global energy and climate change strategy are securing reliable and cost effective power and fuel for our operations, achieving sustainable cost and efficiency improvements that incorporate a shadow cost of carbon, collaborating internally and engaging externally on policies and regulations as well as challenges and opportunities, reducing our carbon footprint and adapting our operations and assisting local communities to mitigate predictable physical impacts tied to climate change. To get there, we set a multiyear greenhouse gas emissions intensity reduction target to reduce our emissions by 16.5 percent between 2016 2020 off of our 2013 baseline. At the end of 2017, we have already reduced our greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 15.6%.
This improvement is largely due to the addition of 2 new lower emissions intensity mines, Long Canyon in Nevada and Marion in Suriname. Our full potential program to improve operational efficiencies and increase renewable energy from grid sources in Colorado, Nevada and Western Australia also contributed to the reduction. Achieving the 2020 target will require implementing additional emission efficiencies, applying new technologies, switching to low or no emission fuel sources and increasing lower energy intensity production. The Tanami Power Project shown next will help advance us towards our target as shown on Slide 15. The Tanami power project located in the Australian Northern Territory and breaking ground this year is designed to secure our fuel supply, allow for future expansion and reduce emissions and costs by approximately 20%.
The project includes a 4 50 kilometer natural gas pipeline to enable fuel switching from diesel to natural gas, 2 power plants, potentially including solar power generation and energy efficiency opportunities. With an internal rate of return greater than 50%, the project creates value, manages risk and positions our operations for a carbon constrained world. Another way we are building climate resiliency is through our global water strategy and fresh water reduction targets shown on Slide 16. Rising production, changing regulations, growing populations and a changing climate are among the factors increasing our exposure to broader and more complex water challenges. Our commitment includes understanding the availability and uses of water within the watersheds where we operate and developing management methods that reduce or mitigate our impacts on water quality and quantity.
Our approach to creating a positive water stewardship legacy is to manage water in ways that are socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial and are aligned with the ICMM's water stewardship position. Through the 5 pillars of our global water strategy, we can secure water supply for our operations, while protecting and enhancing water for other users. These pillars include using a watershed approach, mitigating environmental and social impacts of our water use, managing water as an asset, collaborating and engaging with external stakeholders and collaborating internally on water stewardship objectives. In 2017, all regions met their annual freshwater reduction targets and we reduced our overall freshwater use by 3% compared to the 2016 base year. Our water intensity decreased to 18.6 compared to 19 in 2016, thanks to continued focus on efficiencies and reduced water use.
Our goal to reduce freshwater use by 5% over the next 2 years is expected to drive further improvements in our water intensity performance. Turning to Slide 17. In the Cuyamaca region of Peru near our Yanacocha operation, the extremes between the wet season and dry season create tremendous stress on the largely agrarian surrounding communities. To improve water storage in the wet season and ensure continuous access to water in the dry season, we employed local labor to build 375 multifamily reservoirs used to irrigate crops and pastures, providing more than 700 families with a year round reliable source of water. Also, we invested more than $13,000,000 to improve infrastructure and water quality for the city of Cuyamaca.
Our efforts have helped increase availability for the 200,000 residents of Cuyamaca and helped nearly 24,000 people gain access to potable water for the first time, while also providing sufficient water to run our Yanacocha operation. Initiatives such as these support our commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 6, ensuring access to water and sanitation for all. Now let's look at our closure strategies and practices, starting on Slide 18. From the moment we identify a site to explore, we prepare social and environmental impact assessments developed in collaboration with local stakeholders. These ensure our commitments meet the needs of the region and are then incorporated into our long term planning.
Prior to construction, each operation establishes a detailed closure and reclamation plan. A balanced and multidisciplinary approach is supported by our closure governance model and concurrent reclamation targets are included as an element in total compensation. The ongoing management of 15 legacy sites is also an important element of our strategy. Whether it's a closed mine site we acquired as a result of an acquisition or sites we operated, but have since seized mining, we are committing to safely and responsibly managing decommissioning and rehabilitating these sites, so they pose no threat to the environment or people and can be repurposed when possible for optimal post mining use. An example is the transformation of a former mine site to a botanical garden as shown on Slide 19.
At a former mine site in Minnehasa, Indonesia, which operated from 1996 to 2004, as soon as mining operations ceased, we began the process of restoring roughly 1100 acres back to a state that could be usefully returned to the government. After years of work and planting hundreds of thousands of trees, the former mine site is now a thriving forest. Following an extensive environmental, social and economic credentialing process, the site is now recognized as a botanical garden, the first reclaimed mine site to achieve this status in Indonesia. The Minnehaha spotlight shows what can be achieved through dedicated reclamation efforts and the positive outcomes that can result from proper planning and implementation practices. On Slide 20, we move to the other side of the globe, the Nevada Rangeland.
In 2016, Newmont, the State of Nevada and the U. S. Department of the Interior established the Sagebrush Ecosystem Framework Agreement. The agreement aims to achieve net conservation gains for various wildlife species and habitat across 1,500,000 acres of sagebrush habitat in Northern Nevada, a critical habitat area to many wildlife species that depend on this ecosystem, including the Greater Sage Grouse, which has long been under threat from expanding development, the encroachment of invasive species and associated wildfire. Through the program, we have worked to develop and implement conservation plans and practices to protect and restore the native flora and fauna.
Program also utilizes the Nevada Conservation Credit Bank, which quantifies and credits ecosystem assets for land conservation practices. This program aligns with our commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 17, which promotes partnerships such as this to achieve sustainable development. Turning to Slide 21, I would now like to introduce our Chief Operating Officer, Tom Palmer. Tom was appointed to the Chief Operating Officer role in May of 2016. Prior to Newmont, he was at Rio Tinto for 20 years and benefited from leadership roles across a range of commodities including bauxite, alumina, coal, copper and iron ore.
Tom is a mechanical engineer by training and his career focus has been on developing people, driving continuous improvement and embedding a culture of safety and sustainability. Over to you, Tom.
Thanks, Elaine. The support of our host communities, employees and other key stakeholders is critical to our ongoing success. Over time, this support translates into reputation. And as Gary mentioned, our license to operate rests on our reputation. Turning to Slide 22.
We strive to fulfill Newmont's purpose to create value and improve lives by leading communities better than we found them. For our employees, this means creating a safe and inclusive workplace. For our host communities, this means demonstrating respect for human rights, committing to transparent engagement and providing support programs before, during and beyond the life of a mine. Our ability to deliver on our commitments starts with an operating culture of continuous improvement and it all begins with safety. Turning to Slide 23.
Safety is foundational at Newmont. Without having safety at the core of everything we do, we cannot expect exceptional performance to follow in any other aspect of our business. A key element of our safety culture is the environment that our leaders create, maintain and improve that empowers people to speak up. If there is a concern with any aspect of their work, our team members are encouraged to speak up, stop the work and talk through the hazards and their controls before determining how to proceed safely. One of the measures of our Saich performance is the total recordable injury rate.
Although we have made good progress on this lagging measure, we still have more work to do to ensure everyone who works at Newmont expects to return home safely. Fatality risk management is another key element of our safety program. Ensuring everyone understands management across our business is fundamental to our culture of continuous improvement and ultimately translates to performance in other areas of the business. Turning to Slide 24, we also leverage technology to improve safety. Fatigue is a key risk that is difficult to manage through critical controls.
Following a 2016 pilot in Nevada and Ghana, we installed fatigue detection technology in all of our 270 surface haul trucks globally. The implementation of this new technology was supported by a comprehensive change management program that included education and training on how to understand and manage the factors that contribute to fatigue. Assessments measuring the technology's effectiveness have shown a significant reduction in fatigue related events. For example, at our Carlin operation in Nevada, fatigue related events declined 87% with our other sites achieving similar reductions. Fatigue monitoring is part of a broader well-being program and a focus on continuous improvement and leveraging technology.
Through partnerships, we're able to share learnings and best practices to lead towards high standards across our industry. Turning to Slide 25, I'll highlight our partnership with Project CUA. Project CUA is the world's largest distributor of medical donations to developing countries. Since our partnership began in 2,005, more than $14,000,000 of medical supplies and equipment have been delivered to hospitals and clinics near our operations in Ghana, Suriname, Indonesia and Peru. In 2017, highlights of this program included $2,400,000 in medical equipment and supplies sent to healthcare facilities in Ghana and Suriname, 14 health facilities in Ghana were evaluated to measure the donation impact and all facilities reported positive gains.
More than 1200 community members near operations in Suriname and Peru received free medical care. And the Helping Babies Breathe program in Ghana taught newborn resuscitation schools, which is estimated to have saved 157 lives in the past 2 years. Our partnership with Project Cure also demonstrates sustainable development goal 3, good health and well-being. Turning to Slide 26, I'll cover our approach to protecting human rights. We believe we can and should play a role in helping respect human rights through contributions that both strengthen capacity and empower communities.
Our human rights approach is aligned to a number of voluntary standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the voluntary principles on security and human rights. We report our human rights performance in alignment with these principles. Respect for human rights not only applies to the communities in which we operate, but also to each of our employees. We are committed to building a more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace and fostering a culture where everyone has the opportunity to contribute, develop and work together. This is essential to delivering our strategy.
Last year, we began implementing Paradigm for Parity, a plan supported by Newmont leaders to close the gender gap in leadership roles. We assessed our current programs at all levels of the organization and used the findings to identify near term opportunities and inform our longer term strategy to create a workplace where women and men have equal influence, status and opportunity by 2,030. And finally, we are advancing our supplier risk management program to better understand the risks within our broad and dynamic supply chain and to work with suppliers that share our values and commitments to human rights. Elements of this program include establishing prescreening criteria to assess the suppliers likelihood of impacting human rights, developing human rights supply training and audits with defined targets for screening against key risks, issuing a modern slavery statement which reflects our commitment to address this issue in our supply chain and deploying online training to raise awareness and prevent human rights violations. Turning to Slide 27.
In 2012, Newmont joined together with other companies, thought leaders and NGOs to establish the free prior and informed consent or FPIC solutions dialogue. This collaborative effort aims to translate the FPIC theory into practice. In 2016, we volunteered to improve global understanding and practical implementation of FPIC by asking for an expert advisory panel to study our experience engaging with local Pamaka indigenous groups at the Merian mine in Suriname. Panel members representing a range of experience and expertise reviewed materials, talked with Newmont representatives and visited Myriam to engage with local stakeholders. In 2017, the panel published their findings on applying FPIC at Merian.
The report acknowledged our engagement with the market community and our provision of long term value creation through employment, training and the Community Development Fund. The report also identified opportunities and made recommendations to further align our practices with FPIC including commencing an historical narrative process and seeking indigenous consent before receiving aspiration licenses from the government. We have applied these recommendations at Amazonia, our exploration project near the Myrian mine and have received positive feedback from the community. Social acceptance can never be taken for granted, but we will continue to connect with our local stakeholders and most importantly, listen to their feedback. Turning to Slide 28.
Aligning our objectives with the long term interest of stakeholders is essential in achieving our goal to be the partner of choice. Creating value through shared benefits includes developing social well-being through job creation, community investments, paying taxes and royalties and provisioning local goods and services. In 2017, Newmont's direct economic contributions totaled approximately $6,000,000,000 including $1,400,000,000 in wages and benefits, $3,700,000,000 in payments to supplies and over $600,000,000 in taxes and royalties. We also contributed nearly $14,000,000 to our host communities for education, health, local economic development and infrastructure improvements. In Australia, we extended our partnership at Boddington and KCGM with the Australian indigenous mentoring experience to mentor indigenous high school students to continue their educational journey.
In North America, our employee formed Newmont Legacy Fund contributes to the health and well-being of communities across Northern Nevada and has pledged a record $2,900,000 to local nonprofit organizations in 20 18. And in Africa, we continue to generate lasting community impacts through our foundations in Ghana, shown on Slide 29. In addition to direct investments, our operations at Ahafo and Acheem established foundations to support community needs. The boards of both foundations include local community members to drive ownership and participation along with a focus on issues that matter most. The Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation supports sustainable socioeconomic development projects in 10 communities near the Ahafo mine.
In 2017, we contributed approximately $800,000 bringing the total contribution since 2007 to approximately $25,000,000 The Newmont Acheam Development Fund Foundation continues supports communities in the North Birram District near the Acheam Mine. Newmont contributed nearly $1,900,000 in 20.17, bringing the total to approximately $8,000,000 since 2013. Looking forward, we are developing economic impact assessments to help us better understand and measure our economic contributions, which we will then share with our stakeholders. Turning to Slide 30. Economic impact assessments will provide a structured approach to measuring economic value generated by our supply chain activities, indirect economic impacts and potential future projects.
During last year, we completed assessments at our 5 sites in Australia and Ghana. Noting from this work that the job multiplier impact of a mining operation in developing countries is far greater than that in developed countries. Looking forward, we will use these findings from these five initial assessments to improve our methodology and then work to complete assessments at our other operations and ultimately improve transparency and communication around the benefits mining provides. Now I'd like to introduce Nancy Bezey, our Chief Financial Officer on Slide 31. Nancy is an accomplished finance leader with extensive experience in the natural resources sector.
She was appointed Executive Vice President and CFO in October 2016. Before joining Newmont, she served as Executive Vice President and CFO for MPLX and its predecessor Mark West Energy Partners, both publicly traded energy partnerships. During Nancy's tenure in the energy sector, she was responsible for leading several governance related initiatives and also serves as a Director for several corporate enterprises and not for profit organizations. Over to you, Nancy.
Thanks, Tom. Strong governance is essential for fulfilling our purpose create value and improve lives through sustainable and responsible mining. In this section, I'll cover how our approach to governance supports the delivery of our strategy. Turning to Slide 32. Newmont is committed to strong governance and compliance, and we have a healthy system in place to support and monitor performance.
It begins with our diverse Board of Directors led by our independent Chairwoman, Noreen Doyle, whose mission is to oversee Newmont's efforts to create enduring value for all stakeholders. The Board provides oversight and guidance to the executive leadership team, which has primary responsibility for day to day management and delivery of our strategy. Performance of the leadership team is regularly reviewed by the Board and its committees throughout the year, and Board members also participate in site visits at least once per year to assess performance on the ground. From the Board room to our operating sites, our governance strategy is aligned with stakeholder interests and focuses on meeting expectations through engagement with stakeholders early and often, managing risks through effective mechanisms, and upholding standards to support a culture of integrity. Effective communication with all of our stakeholders is a key element of our strategy.
Turning to Slide 33. Our stakeholders consist of any person or organization influential to our success or may be impacted by our activities. This includes employees, host communities and business partners, government and regulatory bodies, shareholders, investors and analysts, NGOs, Multinational Organizations and the Media, and our peers and members of industry associations. Engaging with our stakeholders early and often promotes transparency and accountability, which in turn creates value and ensures business continuity. For example, we increased our dividend earlier this year to better align with our shareholders' interest and reiterate our focus on returns and long term value creation.
The new dividend reflects the durability of our production pipeline and the stability of our business, positioning Newmont with an industry leading dividend yield of nearly 1.5%. Turning to Slide 34. Shareholder feedback is an important foundation for policy development and informs our executive compensation plans. We have a robust process to develop and review our compensation programs. And in 2018, we made changes to improve alignment, including incorporating return on capital employed in the annual bonus plan to reinforce our focus on capital efficiency and integrating per share measures for EBITDA and reserves.
The changes we made were well received and we achieved 94% shareholder support of this year's say on pay proposal. Our stock based incentives continue to represent the largest component of executive pay and are closely tied to shareholder returns. Shifting to our broader role in the sector on Page 35. Newmont is leading a drive toward higher standards in the mining industry through engagement with peers and industry initiatives. For example, as a founding member of the ICMM, we commit to the 10 principles for sustainable development and transparent and accountable reporting practices.
We also collaborate with them on climate change to develop meaningful science based targets for our industry. Actions being evaluated include fuel switching, increasing renewable energy supply and improving eco efficiencies in mineral processing, just to name a few. In addition, Newmont is a founding member of the World Economic Forum's Partnering Against Corruption Initiative. In support of this initiative, we require training for employees that are most likely to encounter bribery or corruption risks. In 2005, Newmont became one of the first signatories of the International Cyanide Management Code, ICMC, which aims to improve the safe transport, storage and use of cyanide to protect human health and the environment.
We are also a leading member of the World Gold Council, which promotes responsible mining practices across the gold industry. Our conflict free gold standard and reporting of all in sustaining costs are largely informed by guidelines and standards developed by the World Gold Council. These are just a few examples of how we're driving higher standards in the wider industry. Now turning to risk management on Slide 36. As a global mining company, we have a risk profile that is inherently broad and evolving.
Effectively managing these risks is crucial to delivering our strategy. Our global risk management standard and supporting system provide a common assessment framework that is based on the international standard for risk management. To facilitate and standardize how we talk about risk, we developed the Enterprise Risk Management process to provide senior leaders and the Board of Directors regular updates on our top risks and detailed mitigation plans. Part of our risk management process includes our Systematic Country Risk Program, which allows us to make investment and business decisions based on a uniform understanding of geopolitical risks in existing and new jurisdictions. Finally, our integrated management system allows us to effectively track and report all risks through a company wide risk register.
In the event of a crisis or significant incident, Newmont's rapid response system provides timely activation of the resources required to respond and engage all relevant stakeholders across the globe. Turning to Slide 37, I will now touch on integrity. At Newmont, we define integrity as behaving ethically and respecting each other in the customs, cultures and laws where we operate. Our code of conduct governs our commitment to integrity and our ethics and compliance program. Supplementing the code are global policies that our intentions, aspirations and commitments across key aspects of our business, including health and safety, operations and resource development, asset value protection, business integrity, people and sustainability and stakeholder engagement.
Together, the code of conduct, policies and standards provide clear expectations to Newmont employees and those engaged on our behalf. A dedicated team spread across our sites, regions and corporate office lead our global ethics and compliance program. Site compliance managers review transactions, provide training and support other activities to encourage ethical behavior and prevent potential misconduct before it occurs. We also have regional ethics advocates, including 1 attorney in each region who further support the program. Our training program requires acknowledgment of our code of conduct by all employees and provides resources like our ethics solution tool that can be used to report potential code violations and concerns.
This tool is not only available to our employees. Anyone, including contractors and community members, can anonymously report a concern using this resource. Promoting a culture of integrity helps us better engage with our employees. Turning to Slide 48. One way we measure engagement is through annual employee surveys.
In our 2018 global engagement survey, we invited employees to candidly share their opinions regarding alignment with our strategy and values and manager effectiveness. Overall, employee engagement remains strong and well above the industry benchmark. Among the top areas of engagement, a very high percentage of our employees agreed that Newmont is committed to environmental protection and sustainability, indicate that safety is a clear priority, that they were confident in Newmont's future and would recommend Newmont as a great place to work. Looking forward, to engage and support our global workforce will center around 4 areas: talent planning, succession planning, leadership development, and a values based culture, which includes strengthening the impact of our business resource groups, like Newmont Vets and Women and Allies, which provide employees an opportunity to develop as they engage with leaders, colleagues and the community. Leadership development has always been a focus for Newmont with talent discussions at all levels of the organization, starting with the Board where succession plans are reviewed quarterly.
The executive leadership team also spends considerable time reviewing leadership succession, the health of the critical talent pool and inclusion and diversity measures. Newmont's leadership pipeline is the model we use to create a common language and define the scope of work and expected results at each level of our organization. The graphic shown on the bottom left of the slide depicts leadership expectations in Newmont, incorporating the what of our business objectives with how to lead to our values and leadership pipeline expectations. From the boardroom to the mine site, our governance and systems ensure our priorities align with those of stakeholders to create long term value. Thank you.
Now back to Gary on Slide 39.
Thanks, Nancy. Let me turn you to Slide 40. Today, you've heard from 4 of our top leaders that the face of sustainability at Newmont extends much further to include our entire executive leadership team, our Board of Directors and our global workforce. We would not be able to execute our sustainability strategy without the commitment of each member of our team
nor would
we be able to compete for the next generation of Newmont leaders. Turning to Slide 41. We participate in a broad array of global initiatives to raise our standards and performance and I'll touch on just a few now. Paradigm for Parity is a framework developed by business leaders, including Newmont's Board Chair, Noreen Doyle and Board members, Veronica Hagen and Jane Nelson that outlined specific actions to achieve gender parity by 2,030. These actions include eliminating unconscious bias, increasing the number of women in senior operating roles, setting diversity targets and communicating our progress.
We began our journey last year by conducting unconscious bias training and holding employee focus groups to hear firsthand what we need to do to build a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive culture. These efforts are common sense. We want to attract and retain the highest quality talent from the broadest possible pool. They also make good business sense. Studies show that companies with diverse workforces outperform their less diverse counterparts.
We also participate in the voluntary based on respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. We've provided training on the voluntary principles to security team members in Ghana, Peru and Suriname, and earlier this year extended human rights training to our broader workforce. Finally, we work with a coalition of governments, companies and civil society groups to promote revenue transparency through EITI, the extractive industry's transparency initiative. More than 51 countries take part in this initiative and more than 2.3 $1,000,000,000,000 in revenues are now reported every year according to EITI standards. Newmont publishes its tax and royalty payments every year and works to increase awareness about how they are spent in its host countries.
This helps us clarify our contribution to local economies and to build the social acceptance we need to invest and generate value. Wrapping up my comments on Slide 42. I hope we've given you a taste of where we are today on our sustainability journey and where we're heading in the future. And we look forward to hearing from you to make sure we're on the right course as we work to preserve the natural resources we rely on for future generations, make a positive and lasting difference in people's lives and serve as an example of what shareholders and other stakeholders expect from a profitable and responsible business. Thank you for your time.
I'd like to now open the floor to questions. Operator?
I'd like to turn the conference back over to Gary Goldberg for any closing remarks.
Thanks, operator. I want to thank everyone for joining this inaugural ESG call. I think this is our first time putting this together. We want to and we'll welcome your comments on how we can improve the content for this call and continue to improve on our performance. Thanks very much for your participation and listening today and have a safe day.
Thank you.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.