What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2016 Sustainability Report Centerra identified a range of material issues, such as occupational health & safety, water management, local communities, emergency preparedness, waste & hazardous materials management. Among these, promoting responsible business conduct stands out as a key material issue for Centerra.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process s of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Centerra engages with:   

Stakeholder Group

Centerra employees

Educational Institutions

Governments

Lenders

Local Communities

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Shareholders

Suppliers

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritize material issues, Centerra conducted interviews and an on-line survey among both internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders included Board Members, Senior Leadership and Management at sites.

What actions were taken by Centerra to promote responsible business conduct?

In its 2016 Sustainability Report Centerra reports that it took the following actions for promoting responsible business conduct:

• Promoting integrity through the Code of Ethics
• Centerra’s Code of Ethics (COE) discusses topics such as the prevention of conflicts of interest, the protection of confidentiality and compliance with applicable laws. The COE also outlines the company’s expectations regarding employees’ behaviour: Centerra employees should act with honesty, integrity and impartiality. In addition, Centerra’s International Business Conduct Policy (IBC Policy) deals with how employees interact with Public Officials (including government employees and officials), imposing restrictions against bribery of Public Officials.

• Assessing operations for corruption risks
• Centerra’s operations are all assessed – by means of assessments conducted internally – for risks related to corruption and, also, unethical behaviours. Corruption and unethical behaviour risks mostly relate to third party agents and conflicts of interest.

• Enabling employees to raise ethical concerns
• [tweetthis]Centerra employees and third parties are able to raise ethical concerns through various channels[/tweetthis], including speaking to a manager or general manager, human resources personnel, or alternatively, using an anonymous compliance line operated by an independent third party. Centerra’s 24-hour compliance hotline is available by phone, internet or Skype (audio only).

Which GRI Standards have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 102-16 Values, principles, standards, and norms of behavior

2) Disclosure 205-1 Operations assessed for risks related to corruption

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Centerra, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning.  If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page

3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx

4) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

 

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