The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting challenges have highlighted the need for companies to prioritise environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) to safeguard the communities they work with, particularly in the mining industry where mines are often based in rural communities, notes TSX-listed gold producer Barrick Gold.

In its annual report, released last month, the company states that ESG and sustainable governance have been a priority, even before Covid-19 pushed it to the forefront. With the full acquisition of its Tanzanian assets, the North Mara mine, Bulyanhulu mine and Buzwagi mine, from Acacia Mining – having resolved the Acacia dispute with the Tanzanian government – Barrick is ensuring that it meets its goal to work at the ground level of each of its sites to review its performance against a range of sustainable key performance indicators.

To ensure this, the company established an environmental and social oversight committee chaired by Barrick president and CEO Mark Bristow. The committee also reviews emerging challenges and opportunitiesr to brainstorm solutions and encourage knowledge sharing.

Given the number of assets it owns worldwide, Barrick priorities site-level responsibility for managing sustainability, where the company directly interacts with the communities it impacts on, thereby enabling agile and tailored decision-making on community challenges.

Barrick notes that the value of sustainability practices is hard to quantify despite the increase of third-party providers promoting ESG scores and ratings. It is the company’s belief that transparency and consistent monitoring of these scores is what actually allows for better decision-making, the de-risking of projects, and discovering new opportunities to deliver real value.

As part of its ESG commitments, Barrick established a local community development committee (CDC) to focus on the Tanzanian assets and invested $65-million to develop water management best practices.

The CDC is comprised of local leaders, community members, Barrick representatives and other stakeholders.

CDC focus areas include education, health, water and agribusiness, with 21 agribusinesses from 11 villages in the North Mara mine region already supported.

As part of its community development programme, Barrick is engaging Tanzanian youth in a poultry farm project that is currently supplying the company’s mine caterers.

Another priority for Barrick, which is in line with Tanzanian legislative requirements, is to recruit locally with 96% of the mines’ total work- force comprising Tanzanian nationals.