Management approach
Safety is our first consideration in everything we do. We are committed to protecting all our employees, contractors and visitors on site, building a strong safety culture based on both individual and shared responsibility, and driving continual improvement in our safety performance.
Our aim is to eliminate fatalities and life-altering injuries from our operations, and to continuously reduce potential injury and health hazards on our sites. We have captured our commitment to safety through specific actions in our Occupational Health & Safety Policy, as follows:
- Best practices and standards
Meeting or exceeding all applicable regulatory requirements in our host countries and in the absence of appropriate legislation, using industry best practices and standards.
- Structured approach
Establishing and maintaining OH&S management systems that facilitate a structured approach to mitigate safety and health risks at all our managed sites.
- Sustainable system
Providing the leadership and resources required for an effective and sustainable OH&S management system.
- Safety culture
Promoting a safety culture that encourages people to proactively manage health & safety risks through education, instruction, information and supervision, thereby preventing injuries and illnesses.
Every mine has its own site-specific safety procedures, management plans and systems in place, in line with our Health & Safety Management Standard and international best practice. Through these systems we work to identify, understand, monitor and implement the safety controls appropriate to the risks present.
Our goal is for the safety management systems at all operational sites to be certified to the internationally recognized ISO 45001 standard by the end of 2021. Currently the Loulo-Gounkoto complex, Kibali and Tongon are certified to ISO 45001. North Mara received its inaugural certification in February 2021. All other operational sites are on track to achieve certification during 2021.
Key elements of our site-specific safety management systems include:
- Risk Assessments
Risk assessments are conducted at a site level to identify and inform personnel of the potential operational risks and the most appropriate hazard controls. Individual risk assessments are also conducted prior to any worker or team conducting a potentially hazardous or non-routine work activity.
- Training
Training is a crucial part of our approach to safety management. The first time anyone steps on to one of our mine sites, they are required to undergo site-specific orientation and safety induction training.
- Monitoring
Monitoring, includes regular internal and external audits, inspections as well as assurance reviews of our safety controls and procedures, through Leadership Safety Interactions. Our workforce is actively engaged in the reviews and encouraged to identify potential weaknesses in our controls, and to contribute to the development of additional controls.
Our Group Sustainability Executive is responsible for the implementation of our safety policies, the associated procedures and overall performance. The Group Sustainability Executive is supported by regional-level health & safety leads as well as dedicated site-level health & safety teams who drive implementation at the operational level.
Speaking of safety
After a relatively disappointing year in terms of safety in 2019, our Latin America and Asia Pacific operations made significant progress in the journey toward zero harm in 2020. The region recorded a LTIFR of 0.17 and a TRIFR of 0.76, exceeding the regional improvement goal for both measures by a substantial margin.
The cornerstone of the improved performance across the region has been better communication, and measures implemented during 2020 include:
- Weekly safety calls – these are held between the regional safety lead and all regional operating and exploration sites, and provide a regular forum to discuss health and safety successes, challenges and emerging issues; and
- Knowledge sharing – Flash and summary reports of incidents that occur across the group are shared with all sites. These incidents are discussed during the weekly safety calls, along with potential risk control measures for each site to prevent similar incidents occurring.
Responsibility and accountability beyond the health & safety team
Safety on site is everyone’s business. To reinforce this message and encourage safety leadership and responsibility beyond the health & safety team, during 2020 we implemented a new recordable incident and high potential incident (HPI) review system to encourage deeper analysis of the cause and potential controls.
Under the new system, after any recordable or high potential incident, the team from where the incident occurred alongside the site health & safety team, provide a report and presentation to the regional safety team regarding the incident.
The regional team provides guidance and support for the development of the presentations, the findings, and the controls introduced.
Safety training at Pueblo Viejo gold mine in the Dominican Republic. The mines in the Latin
America and Asia Pacific region were hard at work in 2020 to improve their safety scores.
We measure our safety performance by tracking a combination of leading and lagging indicators. Leading safety indicators include safety leadership interactions, which promote discussion of workplace health & safety between senior management and the workforce. We also track the number of HPIs reported at each site to ensure management is effectively managing near-miss incidents that have a higher risk potential. Root cause analysis is completed for all HPIs to identify potential causes and controls, and the lessons learned from these incidents are shared globally.
The lagging indicators we track are Lost Time Injuries (LTI) and Total Recordable Injuries (TRI), and we report on the respective frequency rates at a site, regional and group level. This helps us to understand the severity and frequency of any injuries that occur at our operations, to recognize trends, and to take action to focus our safety management efforts.
Safety performance is integrated into weekly, monthly and quarterly reporting. They are also discussed as a key part of weekly Executive Committee meetings, and regional operational meetings. Safety is also a key agenda item at every meeting of the Board’s Corporate Governance & Nominating Committee. Achieving our injury reduction and workplace safety improvement targets makes up a significant part of both site and group-level incentive compensation.
Performance
Overall, we saw improvements to both our TRIFR and LTIFR, with our TRIFR improving 25% from 2.24 to 1.68 year-on-year, and our LTIFR improving 32% from 0.50 to 0.34 per million hours worked. Disappointingly, this improvement was not consistent across the group. Analysis of regional performance shows the improvements at the group level were driven by significant improvements at our Latin America and Asia Pacific operations, with TRIFR and LTIFR improving 49% and 68%, respectively, for the region.
Despite these improvements, 2020 was a disappointing year in terms of safety performance due to the fatality at our Kibali mine in the DRC. The tragedy occurred underground where Mr Aurelien Mufungizi, a married father of four who worked as an underground service truck operator, became trapped between two vehicles.
One fatality is one too many and we have conducted an in-depth investigation into the incident and implemented a detailed corrective action plan to prevent a similar tragedy from recurring. Our deepest condolences go out to Mr Mufungizi’s family.
Journey to Zero Harm
Our approach to safety management is to continuously improve our performance, and our ultimate goal is to become a zero harm workplace. As part of our efforts to deliver this goal, in 2020 we rolled out our ‘Journey to Zero Harm’ initiative. Journey to Zero Harm is motivated by our belief in safe production and our vision for everyone going home safely each day. It is underpinned by the Stop Unsafe Work Authority found in our Fatality Prevention Commitments. The destination of zero harm is achieved when all personnel, across all regions and at all levels of the company consistently achieve zero recordable injuries. The initiative is focused on proactive management of safety across the company and the following key components:
- Visible felt leadership and engagement with our workforce – We know that safety happens on the ground and not behind a desk. That is why we expect the General Manager and leadership teams of each mine to spend time everyday walking around site, observing behaviour and discussing safety issues and risks with the workforce. Each site has its own target for senior site leadership interactions.
- Aligning and improving our standards – With three significant corporate transactions taking place across Barrick in 2019, there were a number of different safety approaches and standards to align. We have worked throughout 2019 and 2020 to review and align the standards across the group.
- Ensuring accountability to our safety commitments and making sure our employees are fit for duty – Our focus on safety helped drive safety performance improvements across much of the group in 2020, with the group recording fewer LTIs and TRIs compared to the 2019 year, and the related frequency rates also decreasing year on year.