What are the material issues the company has identified?  

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Newcrest identified a range of material issues, such as ethical and transparent behaviour, working with communities, respecting human rights, managing waste. Among these, promoting employee health and hygiene stands out as a key material issue for Newcrest.

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 reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process 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 Newcrest engages with:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Employees and contractors	·      Employee briefings ·      Intranet ·      Social media ·      Email ·      Newsletters ·      Social events ·      Notice boards ·      Departmental site and toolbox meetings ·      Performance reviews ·      Site general manager town hall meetings ·      Direct engagement between people leaders and their teams ·      Annual Organisational Health Survey participation
Shareholders and investors	·      Annual reports ·      Quarterly production reports ·      Half-yearly financial reporting ·      Website ·      Email ·      Investor briefings ·      One-on-one discussions ·      Investor days ·      Conference calls ·      Market announcements ·      Annual general meeting ·      Industry conferences ·      Social media
Local communities	·      Community Relations team visits ·      Resident and community meetings ·      Site visits ·      Communication and feedback forums with leaders and communities ·      Complaints and grievance mechanisms ·      Sponsorships and partnerships ·      Collaborative agreements ·      Media engagement on local initiatives ·      Community newsletters ·      Factsheets ·      Websites ·      Social media
Government and regulators	·      Face-to-face meetings ·      Regular briefings ·      Direct engagement
Suppliers	·      Collaborative guidelines ·      Out-to-market approaches ·      Face-to-face discussions ·      Performance meetings ·      Contractual agreements
Customers	·      Market tenders ·      Meetings ·      Reports ·      Face-to-face discussions ·      Site visits

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics Newcrest engaged with its stakeholders through internal and external stakeholder interviews.

What actions were taken by Newcrest to promote employee health and hygiene?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Newcrest reports that it took the following actions for promoting employee health and hygiene:

• Combating workplace fatigue
• To reduce the risk of fatigue-related workplace incidents, Newcrest’s operational sites use fatigue management plans. These focus on areas that may cause workplace fatigue such as work design, including shift rostering and camp facilities, as well as factors related to lifestyle and health. Newcrest has developed a Company-wide Fatigue Management Standard that provides consistent minimum standards to mitigate fatigue risks across the organisation. In FY19, Newcrest developed and delivered fatigue management training across the business, with training materials translated into Indonesian, Tok Pisin (PNG) and Spanish, including site-specific information such as managing fatigue during Ramadan for Newcrest’s teams in Indonesia.

• Reducing exposures
• Reducing workplace exposures continues to be a key part of Newcrest’s health and hygiene programme with all sites undertaking activities to identify and reduce exposures. Gosowong purchased DPM emissions monitoring equipment to supplement the existing exhaust gas testing equipment used onsite. This equipment allows the site maintenance team to undertake comprehensive emissions testing of onsite diesel-powered vehicles to identify when a vehicle is running poorly and generating higher levels of DPM or hazardous exhaust gases. This information assists with repairs and also allows the site ventilation teams to better design ventilation systems throughout the mine to control workforce exposures to DPM. During the reporting period, Telfer and Cadia worked with occupational physicians to review and update health surveillance programmes to better monitor workers for potential health effects from workplace exposures. Cadia partnered with Insurance and Care NSW (iCare) to deliver health surveillance for the workforce, which includes onsite screening using the ‘iCare Lung Bus’. This was followed up with additional screening with specialist medical personnel for anyone identified during the initial screening as requiring more comprehensive health surveillance. Telfer implemented a respiratory protection programme, which involved health surveillance checks of any personnel required to wear respiratory protective equipment. The process included fit testing to ensure the respiratory protective equipment fitted correctly and enforcing the requirement for workers using respiratory protective equipment to be clean shaven. During the reporting year Lihir, Cadia and Telfer all completed surveys to identify noise exposure risks and develop risk control plans.

• Promoting employees’ physical and mental health
• All Newcrest sites are working to improve their wellbeing programmes, with a strong focus on mental wellness. In FY19, the Melbourne office delivered a series of mental health first-aid training courses, to ensure that the office is suitably resourced with personnel who can respond to both physical and psychosocial health issues within the workplace. Several of Newcrest’s sites implemented wellbeing programmes designed to help employees and contractors maintain and improve their physical and mental health.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 403-9 Work-related injuries

2) Disclosure 403-10 Work-related ill health

 

Disclosure 403-9 Work-related injuries corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• Targets: 3.6, 3.9
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

Disclosure 403-10 Work-related ill health does not correspond to any SDG.

 

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Newcrest, 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) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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