Anglo American’s ‘Good Citizenship’ business principles guide the company’s decisions and actions. It strives to make a lasting contribution to the well-being of communities while generating strong investor returns and recognises that long-term success depends on taking into account the needs of all stakeholders.
Leading the field in stakeholder engagement
The Socio Economic Assessment Toolkit (SEAT) is a unique profiling, engagement, assessment and management planning framework used by Anglo since 2003 and mandatory for use at all significant operations. Through SEAT the company identifies the issues most pressing to the communities around each of their mines and develops a strategic plan to tackle these issues at a local level.
The SEAT key steps include:
- Profiling AA operations and host communities
- Identifying and engaging with key stakeholders
- Assessing the impacts of operations - both positive and negative - and the community's key socio-economic development needs
- Developing a management plan to mitigate any negative aspects of the company’s presence and to make the most of the benefits Anglo’s operations bring
- Working with stakeholders and communities to help address some of their broader development challenges they would face even without Anglo’s presence
- Producing a report with stakeholders to form the basis for ongoing engagement with and support for the community
Measuring the difference
The company is taking action on issues affecting its host communities around the world such as HIV/Aids, support for local enterprise, poverty and the other direct and indirect social impacts of their operations on local communities. It captures the benefits to communities of these activities, and can demonstrate how it is tracking progress against specific community benefit targets.
Engaging employees
Employees are supported to engage in community activities across Anglo’s global activities through volunteering, fundraising and payroll giving. Additionally, Anglo demonstrates its commitment to making positive community impacts by investing in supporting employees with functional community responsibilities through its Advanced Social Management Programme. The programme is designed to equip senior managers whose roles have a significant potential to impact on host communities to identify and implement successful community development projects, and also to be able to engage with host communities in a respectful manner.
For details about the projects and community initiatives that led to Anglo American achieving the CommunityMark, please visit http://www.angloamerican.co.uk
