Anglo American has announced that its Minas-Rio iron ore and Barro Alto nickel mines in Brazil have been assessed against the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance’s (IRMA) comprehensive mining standard, achieving the IRMA 75 level of performance, it says reflecting Anglo American’s integrated approach to sustainability and its commitment to transparency in striving for the highest levels of responsible metals production. 

Minas-Rio and Barro Alto are the first iron ore and nickel-producing mines in the world to complete an IRMA audit. Anglo adds: “This follows the achievement of our Unki platinum mine in Zimbabwe, the first in the world to publicly commit to be independently audited against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining and which also achieved IRMA 75 in 2021.” 

Ruben Fernandes, Anglo American’s Regional Director – Americas, said: “We believe our participation in IRMA helps promote transparency and best practice in sustainability, while adding value to our customers by helping them to meet increasing expectations for responsibly sourced mined materials in an efficient and credible way. Through our digital traceability platform Valutrax™, which launched last year, we are also making it easier for customers to have visibility over products with third-party assurance such as IRMA, empowering the transparency and provenance of their purchasing decisions. We are continuing to make great progress towards assuring all our operations against a recognised responsible mining standard by 2025, as we committed to in our Sustainable Mining Plan.”

Aimee Boulanger, Executive Director of IRMA, said: “We applaud Anglo American for volunteering the first iron ore and nickel mines for an audit against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining, and for its larger commitment to put all their metal mining operations to IRMA audit. That commitment, along with their IRMA Board membership, exemplifies Anglo American’s ongoing leadership in the practical application of responsible mining principles.” 

Ana Sanches, CEO of Anglo American in Brazil, commented: “The IRMA assurance process has provided us with a valuable opportunity to measure our performance at Minas-Rio and Barro Alto against international best sustainability practices and identify next steps for improvement. The result is informed by evidence from a diverse range of stakeholders including employees, governments, NGOs, customers and communities alike. We are immensely proud of the work the teams have been doing at Minas-Rio and Barro Alto on responsible mining, and we look forward to continue leading the way for our other mining operations across Anglo American.”

The IRMA scoring system recognises four levels of performance: IRMA Transparency, in which a mine is third-party-assessed and publicly shares its scores; IRMA 50 or 75, signifying that a mine meets a core set of critical requirements together with at least 50% or 75% of the requirements in each of the four sections of the Standard for Responsible Mining and IRMA 100, which signifies the mine meets all of the Standard’s requirements. 

Other Anglo American operations that have been independently audited include the Mototolo, Amandelbult and Mogalakwena PGMs operations in South Africa; and the Kolomela and Sishen iron ore operations, also in South Africa. The outcomes of those audit reports are pending. 

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 and the ultimate downstream users of mined products, NGOs, labour unions, and communities, and is considered to be one of the most rigorous certification processes