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Sustainability > Our Approach

CSR Advisory Board

Barrick’s CSR Advisory Board (the Advisory Board) was formed in 2012 and acts as an external sounding board on a range of corporate responsibility issues including community relations, sustainable development, water, energy, climate change, security, and human rights.

We benefit from the insight of world-renowned experts in human rights, sustainability, and international development, currently including Aron Cramer, Robert Fowler and Gare Smith. John Ruggie, author of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, serves as a Special Consultant to the Advisory Board.

Meeting Summaries

November 2017
May 2017
November 2016
June 2016
November 2015
May 2015
November 2014
June 2014
November 2013
April 2013
October 2012
April 2012

The Advisory Board is a forum for external thought leaders to engage with senior management at Barrick in constructive discussion and lesson-sharing, providing intelligence on emerging trends and providing practical guidance on best practice in social and environmental performance. They meet with our Executive Chairman, President, and other senior leaders in-person twice a year, as well as conducting annual visits to Barrick sites.

These distinguished individuals bring diverse perspectives on the social and environmental issues and opportunities that face Barrick and the international mining industry. They encourage and challenge us with respect to our CSR programs and performance, and help us continue to deliver on our commitment to responsible mining.

The Advisory Board conducts annual site visits

The advisory board visits a community near Barrick’s Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic with Barrick Director Nancy Lockhart (from left to right Robert Fowler, Aaron Cramer, John Ruggie, Gare Smith, Nancy Lockhart).

Board Members & Special Consultant

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Aron Cramer

Mr. Cramer is recognized globally as an authority on corporate responsibility by leaders in business and non-governmental organizations. As President and CEO of BSR, he advises senior executives at BSR’s 250 member companies and other global businesses, and is regularly featured as a speaker at major events and in the media. Mr. Cramer is co-author of the book Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World, which profiles CSR strategies that drive business success. He joined BSR in 1995 as the founding director of its Business and Human Rights Program, and in 2002, he opened BSR’s Paris office, where he worked until becoming President and CEO in 2004. Previously, Mr. Cramer practiced law in San Francisco and worked as a journalist at ABC News in New York.

 

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Robert Fowler

During his 38-year public service career, Mr. Fowler was the Foreign Policy Advisor to Canadian Prime Ministers Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, and Brian Mulroney. He was Canada’s longest-serving Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Deputy Minister of National Defence, Ambassador to Italy and the three Rome-based UN Food Agencies, and the Personal Representative for Africa of Canadian Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, and Stephen Harper. In 2005, he chaired Prime Minister Martin’s Special Advisory Team on Sudan. Mr. Fowler retired in the fall of 2006. In July 2008, the UN Secretary-General appointed Mr. Fowler to be his Special Envoy to Niger. In 2011, Mr. Fowler wrote A Season in Hell in which he recounts his and his colleague Louis Guay’s kidnapping by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and their 130 days of captivity in the Sahara Desert.

 

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Gare Smith

Mr. Smith founded and chairs the corporate social responsibility practice at the law firm Foley Hoag LLP. He provides counsel on compliance programs to address labor conditions, community and stakeholder relations, security, indigenous rights, transparency, environmental stewardship, and the rule of law. Mr. Smith previously served as Vice President for CSR at one of the world’s most recognized clothing brands. As Senior Foreign Policy Advisor and Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, he authored the U.S. Senate’s voluntary code of conduct for U.S. multinationals. He was appointed by the White House to serve as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. In that role, he helped to launch President Bill Clinton’s Model Business Principles and served as U.S. representative to the UN Human Rights Commission, the International Labour Organization, and the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples. Mr. Smith has authored three books on codes of conduct and international human right standards, which were published by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

 

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John G. Ruggie

Professor Ruggie is special consultant to the CSR Advisory Board. Professor Ruggie is the former UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights and a current Harvard professor. One of the premier authorities on corporate citizenship and responsibility, Professor Ruggie served as UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights from 2005 to 2011, with a mandate to propose measures to strengthen human rights performance of the business sector around the world. He authored the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which the UN Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed in 2011. He is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School.

 

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