Kumba Iron Ore, an Anglo American subsidiary, said its Sishen and Kolomela iron ore mines in South Africa have been assessed against the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s (IRMA) comprehensive mining standard, achieving the IRMA 75 level of performance.
The IRMA scoring system recognises four levels of performance: IRMA Transparency, in which a mine is third-party-assessed and publicly shares its scores; and IRMA 50, 75 or 100, signifying that a mine meets a core set of critical requirements together with at least 50%, 75% or 100% of the requirements in each of the four sections of the Standard for Responsible Mining being met respectively.
“We are pleased that Kumba is the first iron ore producer in Africa to complete the IRMA audit, providing stakeholders with a way of accounting for sustainability practices that is transparent, verifiable, and comparable. Launched last year, our digital traceability platform Valutrax is available to customers purchasing Anglo American mined products, helping them to trace metals and minerals through a tailored selection of key provenance and sustainability indicators, including third-party assurance such as IRMA,” said Themba Mkhwanazi, Anglo American regional director – Africa and Australia.
“The IRMA results demonstrate further progress on our Sustainable Mining Plan commitment of having all our operations undergo third-party audits against responsible mine certification standards by 2025. IRMA improves our ability to build an understanding of areas where we can continue to improve our ESG performance.”
IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining has been developed over a decade through a public consultation process with more than 100 different individuals and organisations, including mining companies, customers, NGOs, labour unions, and communities. It is considered to be one of the most rigorous certification processes.
Source: Anglo American