The Gold Industry Group (GIG) and Deloitte annual leadership breakfast opened this year’s Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum second day with a power hour, interactive discussion on the importance of strong leadership and Environment, Safety, and Governance (ESG) to more than 100 attendees at the WA School of Mines Graduate Hall.
Panelists Michael Wood, Sally Langer, Andrea Maxey, and host Nicki Ivory
GIG Director Andrea Maxey welcomed the delegates to the event with an opening invite to watch the success of the GIG’s recent tour of the Goldfields with West Coast Fever, magnifying the industry’s community reach and engagement before joining fellow panelists.
Northern Star Resources, The Perth Mint, Sandfire Resources Ltd and MMA Offshore Non-Executive Director Sally Langer, GIG and Denver Gold Group Director and AngloGold Ashanti Australia Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Community and Human Resources Andrea Maxey, and Deloitte Sustainability and Climate Change Services Partner Michael Wood then took to the stage highlighting how we can build resilient leaders and cultures to prepare our workforce and organisations for future challenges, hosted by Deloitte Partner Nicki Ivory.
Ms Langer cited three key traits of strong leaders: having a clear strategy, courage or the ability to have a tough conversation, and curiosity or being genuinely interested. Broader, is the ability to bring different views into a conversation and embracing diversity including bringing people in from different industries, different cultures, different abilities, which makes teams work incredibly well.
ESG was front and center of the debate, with Ms Maxey confirming it is front of mind for investors, they want to know your approach, practical strategies, community engagement, and environment operations.
“From a company perspective I think you certainly need expertise on the board, and you need to bring expertise in to help make sure that you understand the perspectives of all of your stakeholders, not just investors but also your employees and the local communities,” Ms Maxey said.
Ms Langer said culture surveys have proven ESG is important to the entire workforce not just the board, management, and investors.
On ESG outcomes, Mr Wood and Ms Langer agreed on the complex challenges brought about by internal targets and metrics, and overall expectations.
“I think the challenge with any program, is making targets that the external markets see are aggressive enough, and particularly around ESG that they are making them achievable for management team,” said Ms Langer.
“I think investors are going to want to see some pretty hard, pretty stretched target for them in emissions, but it’s not straightforward.”
Mr Wood shared his take on ESG, particularly in climate action, highlighting data as a starting point, and looking at direct emissions within a facility, electricity from the grid, and the entire value chain.
“The next step is reducing emissions and how we deal with diesel, displace it, substitute it, and then eliminate it completely. And lastly, the most important thing is a strong internal narrative to help you deploy your value proposition around the direction of your business and telling that story to your investors.
“The pressure is only going to intensify as markets continue to ask more questions and customers want traceability, they will want to see the embodied emission and ESG factors being provided through the whole value chain,” said Mr Wood.
Ms Ivory then asked about understanding data and a whole new host of skills that will be required to accommodate for the future of mining and asked about building expertise within companies and the industry.
Mr Wood said a lot of these skills already do exist within organisations and that they just need to be reframed. He added that another more complex issue is to outsource but overall, it’s about collaboration and sharing.
Ms Maxey then acknowledged that we are transitioning into a very different way of work, and we’ll need to adapt in order to retain talent, upskill and bring new people in to start building more capability. She noted that alongside automation is also data science which she anticipates will be a big area of growth.
Continuing with the theme of keeping people safe, Ms Maxey spoke about some practical things that leaders in mining could do, starting with a focus on creating an inclusive culture.
“Mental health is a complex issue that needs to be addressed in multiple ways, but for starters it’s education, removing stigma, training, and creating a social support system that people need in the community as well,” said Ms Maxey.
The Gold Industry Group LIVINWell School Tour was officially launched at the event. The third national tour of its kind by the GIG and mental health partner LIVIN, the 2021 tour aims to empower students in the regions GIG members operate in across Australia to speak up about mental health. Deloitte also launched their report: Building climate capability for a resilient mining sector.
Watch our power hour discussion online.
Relive all the highlights from the 2021 Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum in our wrap article.
