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MATERIALS STEWARDSHIP
In line with our environmental policy, IGO supports the
concept of materials stewardship. Materials stewardship is
an integrated strategy aimed at ensuring that all material,
processes, and products associated with our business are
produced, consumed and disposed of in an economically,
socially and environmentally responsible manner.
Materials stewardship is generally seen to have 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
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.