INDEPENDENCE GROUP NL SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2017

IGO supports the idea of materials stewardship, in accordance with our environmental policy. IGO has implemented an integrated strategy aimed at ensuring that our products, materials and processes associated with our business are produced, consumed and disposed of in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible manner. Materials stewardship includes three components: resource stewardship, process stewardship and product stewardship. Resource stewardship is the process of maximising the benefits derived from the resource over its entire lifetime while minimising or mitigating the resultant negative impacts. The obvious focus of resource stewardship in the mining context is ore recovery and the avoidance of activities that will likely result in the ‘sterilisation’ of ore (i.e. doing something that is likely to permanently render an ore source as sub-economic to mine). However, resource stewardship extends over a wide range of materials including the natural resources on the lands surrounding and controlled by mining companies, the topsoil and biomass cleared from a site prior to the commencement of mining, the management of the waste rock extracted during mining, and the management of other wastes including tailings. Resource stewardship is central to IGO’s day-to-day environmental management. Process stewardship is the set of activities required to ensure that we maintain effective control over our mining- related activities to maximise socio-economic benefits while minimising or mitigating the negative impacts. Process stewardship specifically includes the way in which we manage process inputs such as water, power and other process consumables. Product stewardship is the process by which the producer controls or seeks to influence how their product is used and ultimately disposed of. For mining companies like IGO, resource stewardship and process stewardship are directly within our control. In the case of product stewardship (as is true for most producers of gold, nickel and copper, zinc and silver), while we have some control in determining who the initial buyers of our products are, we effectively have no control over the materials once they enter the myriad of global manufacturing supply chains. MATERIALS STEWARDSHIP 88 — IGO SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2017