Anglo American plc (AAL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone, to our first sustainability update of the year. For those who don't know me, I'm Anik Michaud, I'm Group Corporate -- I'm Group Director of Corporate Relations and Sustainable Impact. Apologies in advance if you hear a bit of drilling noise, there's work being done on the road. So we endeavor to do these updates twice a year not because of the numbers themselves, though they are important, but because this is a journey with multiple steps, and we want to make sure we engage and share these elements as we progress. And I need to recognize that we are updating you today against the backdrop of appalling human suffering in Ukraine. Our thoughts are very much with them, and in particular, our colleagues who have family and friends in the region. Next slide, please. So I'm going to ask you to please read this slide carefully, but please do so in your own time. So the order of play today. After talking about some of our key sustainability metrics and progress and our ongoing work in relation to COVID, I will hand over to Mark to update 2 areas of work, the energy transition and water stewardship. I will then talk a little about the safe and inclusive culture that we have been working towards for some years now. Next slide, please. So as ever, we will start with health and safety. Again, next slide. COVID is still very much front of mind, despite us all starting to learn to live with it. But as you know, infections are spiking again as restrictions continue to ease in many countries. We see the ongoing effects of the disease on our workforce health tracking, on attendance or absenteeism and on productivity, and we just cannot let our guard down. We continue to focus on keeping employees and community members safe through our WeCare program, and you can see the 4 pillars of the program on this slide. We are flexing our ongoing health protocols to reflect the evolution of the disease in each part of our business, and we are, of course, encouraging vaccination at every turn. As you can imagine, some of these pressures have led to a slower start to the year operationally. Next slide, please. We track a consistent set of metrics to manage our performance across all aspects of sustainability. This is not just about ESG. This is about sustainability and ensuring we have a truly sustainable business across all dimensions, and Mark, in his closing, is going to address this point. You have seen the data points in our 2021 results and the sustainability report, and I am not going to walk you through them all. But since Stephen is not presenting today, I will do the numbers and highlight a couple of points. But fear not, he will be here for the Q&A. We are not perfect, and we know there is still a lot of work to do. But having said that, we are making some progress, and Mark will specifically cover the area of safety in a moment. A continued reduction in GHG emissions, down 8% year-on-year despite 5% higher production volumes, which Mark will also touch on. Strong progress on the implementation of our leading Social Way 3.0 management system. I talked to you about this a year ago. It is a significantly higher bar than any that has been said before in the industry, and we are making great progress in the rollout. 49% of foundational requirements have now been fulfilled, up from 23% last year. Just to give you a sense of how hard that bar really is, I would consider that the 49% implementation we achieved in 2021 represents a higher overall level of performance than the 96% we reported in 2019 against our old Social Way. Finally, I'm delighted with the progress we are continuing to make on female representation in management, up from 27% to 31%. Mark, now over to you, please. And the next slide.

Thanks very much Anik, and I'll go straight to the Safety, Health and Environment slide. Thank you very much. On Safety, Health and Environment, we continue to focus on our environmental journey. 8 years on some of -- or the year's results, we see some of our best performances although, as Anik said, there remains a lot of work to be done. Tragically, we've lost one colleague this year in an incident at Moranbah Colliery. And unfortunately, we've also now reported the loss of a colleague from an incident back in 2021. Julian was making good progress, but unfortunately, succumbed following medical complication, so it's been a pretty sad 3 weeks for us here in the business. It's my biggest regret during my tenure, we've not reached 0 harm. We have reduced fatal incidents by over 90%, but again, we haven't hit 0. And certainly, in my view, and I know Duncan has said this, that it will be his most important challenge going forward. So as he takes the business forward, I know it's his top priority and certainly commitment to all of our employees to provide a safe workplace remains our most important objective and certainly front and center in terms of our values. We did record a 59% reduction in safety incidents over the last few years. And that will -- as Anik pointed out, the COVID issues continue to impact our planned works through the operation. As a consequence, we've seen a flattening off of performance. And so there are some very specific interventions that we're taking out as we speak to try and take that to the next level. This has got to focus on getting a much higher proportion of planned work, and that has dropped off through the COVID period, and that certainly impacted our ability to deliver a safer working environment. That's where we've got to go. It does also impact on the operations. And as Anik said earlier, we've had a bit of a tough start. We've had record rainfall in South Africa and Brazil in the first quarter. That also impacts the way we prepare areas, and that's also impacted our planned work, and that's had broad repercussions. So a tough quarter, but something that we'll pick up and try and improve as we go forward. We've also the good news, seeing a 92% reduction in occupational health cases and a 97% reduction in environmental incidents where the increase in planned works and where we started a number of years back has certainly driven significant performance improvement. Again, we've got to keep our -- keep our eyes on that planned work and make sure it continues to go up as we continue to eliminate the incidents that we've seen. So generally, good progress, but a little bit tougher over the last couple of years with the COVID impact, something that we are all working on. In 2021, we recorded 1 Level 3 environmental incident related to a leakage of discharge from a water transfer line in our base metals plant in the Platinum business. That issue is being corrected, and we have certainly increased the frequency and -- of pipeline inspections and their repair and maintenance work has certainly been upgraded as part of that process. So that's very important point to make given the incident that we recorded last year. Again, whilst we've made great progress on the number of fronts, the Elimination of Fatalities Task Force is being reinvigorated to try and take us to that 0 target that we were talking about. We've also been actioning a lot of the key programs that came out of that work as well, and that will be the focus -- our focus during the next 12 months. Next slide, please. Okay. So you'll be familiar with our purpose and strategy context that we talk about for the business. In our case, our strategy is designed to live up to our purpose and the FutureSmart Mining, we set pathways and plans to deliver on that strategy. So our sustainable mining plan is ultimately to deliver outcomes aligned with that purpose, and that is, of course, reimagining mining to improve people's lives and to deliver enduring value in its many different fronts for our wide range of stakeholders. That includes, obviously, shareholders, employees, our local communities, in particular, the broader government and communities that we work with and all of our stakeholders, including NGOs, that we do listen to and engage with to try and help us improve our business as we go forward. Next slide, please. Now in the slide which is showing the 3 pillars of our Sustainable Mining Plan. They include stretch goals that you will now be familiar with. These goals and targets were embedded into our business planning at a very granular level so we cascade the responsibilities through the organization. And it's the same way we manage our operational objectives, which is making sure that the things that we're targeting are part of daily life for every individual within the organization. Similar Safety, Health, Environment, the Social metrics are embedded in our executive and senior management pay mechanisms. Both bonuses and long-term incentives, including specifically around emissions and off-site job creation. That has certainly been a very strong topic of conversation with many of our stakeholders. On the energy transition. Next slide, please. As ever, a key part of our story is how we contribute to the global energy transition both through our activities on the ground and through the wider impacts of our portfolio in the business. Next one please, next slide. And just to follow up, Anik's point around the impacts of COVID on our operations, which you can see that, the production line. These impacts continue partly due to still-stretched supply chains throughout the global supplies of mining products, and that's something much broader we've seen and see from being exacerbated further with the Russian-Ukraine conflicts. These impacts continued partly due to stretched supply chains, but also due to the residual impacts on our maintenance schedules, which can take some time to catch up. So a lot of work in that area of the business, and we'll certainly see that continue through the next 12 months. So as we've said for some time now, in 2021, we were operating at around 95% capacity. And from our point of view, we are still reviewing each operation to bring practices into line with our expectations, and that is on the planned work so that we can deliver on our potential. And I think we still got a way to go, and certainly, there's a lot more work to be done. I've been traveling through the operations over the last few weeks, reinforcing those messages, making sure we're focused on safety and making sure that we get our maintenance practices back into line along with our mine planning schedules so that we improve first, safety, our execution of our actual development programs and then making sure that that's coming through on the productivity line. Certainly, from my point of view, safety is the first point of core, but these things impact other parts of the business well, and we certainly acknowledge that it's a holistic approach to the way we run the business. This efficiency improvement is driven by 2 factors so far. And our improvements in terms of carbon efficiency, we've improved around 10%, and we're down 18% on our greenhouse gas targets since 2017. So we've made good progress driven by the renewable energy contracts across South America, which will be fully in place by 2023 and to our continued drive towards better operation -- operating efficiencies. And so 2 key contributors for us in those 2 areas. And obviously, we will continue to try and extend our renewable footprint and improve our operating efficiencies, again, with a bit more work to be done. Next slide, please. And on the other way, which we're supporting the world's movement towards a more sustainable future. This is in the strategic -- this work is focused on the strategic allocation of the capital towards future enabling metals and minerals. The simple message, the world needs the metals and minerals we produce if we're going to decarbonize energy and transport at the required pace. In particular, with us and our share of copper growing as Quellaveco approaches to startup and also notably, I think, now Met Coal is of high-quality, which is very important in terms of cleaning up and reducing emissions from the steel -- from steel making. And we're playing to trends beyond decarbonization with, Crop Nutrients playing one of the other key macro roles in our portfolio. A growing consumer-led population in a world with reducing amounts of available agricultural land, Crop Nutrients becomes a key way for us to play in that space as well. So we're growing our impact on the right areas while shrinking our environmental footprint. And so from that point of view, we're making good progress. And I'll just come back from our nickel operations in Brazil, and there's a great video that we've put on the website that talks about ferronickel and how we're using wood chips. So we're growing the timber, we're using the wood chips in the furnace, and then it's a complete circle. So the carbon sink from the forest that we're using are offsetting the use of the wood chips and the energy and the furnace. And so those types of internally-created neutral carbon sinks has been a really smart piece of innovation from the team, and it's an example of how we see ourselves making that carbon neutral objective in 2040 and getting our operations up there by 2030. So really good work being done on that ground. And it's not simply about buying in renewable energy. It looks at all the opportunities we have within the business to make a difference. Next slide, please. To go a little deeper and to help people understand where we are in terms of 30% Scope 1 or 2 reduction target by 2030 and our goal to deliver the carbon neutrality target by 2040, those numbers relate to Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. We're investigating the developmental technology to reduce our transmissions. And this is today's view of our pathway based on our current operations. We'll update with portfolio changes as those new technologies come along. We can't achieve that goals on our own as we are relying on our partnerships and the decarbonization of the wider ecosystems. But again, we've been in the right negotiations with both energy providers and with their suppliers of equipment, and we're working on a number of fronts. We are committed to working on the developmental technology, and it's not -- and we're not waiting for it to come to us. We have responsible custodians of our mines, and whilst we do not have all the answers, we are investing in the team to develop the solutions for the interim and beyond the life of our mines. We like to tell the story step by step, and we've added a key component of the process through our partnership with EDF Renewables to secure 100% renewable energy for our operations in South Africa as a further major step towards addressing our on-site energy requirements. Remember that we have all of our South American operations on renewable energy. We'll have that by 2023. And so for us, the next step of reducing major source of operational emissions is the implementation of the renewable strategy in South Africa, and I'll touch on that a little bit later. This approach is consistent with the plan set out in the last year's climate report and is the basis for our climate resolution at our upcoming AGM. Next slide, please. People have asked us recently about the level of ambition of our 30% 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target, which was from a 2016 baseline. It's important to remember the context when we set that target, that was sector-leading at that time, and we're talking about intensity targets were commonly used at that point in time. And to understand what we then set or how we then set the next target, we knew our emissions were increasing due to our planned shift towards a future-enabling portfolio and through production growth in the right areas, which results in what we think is a peak in our emissions profile in 2019. So the reduction from peak emission assumed from the target is actually 45%, so we've made significant progress in our efficiency work. To drive this in over the sites, we expect to see the impacts of our initiatives starting to take more significant impact as I outlined earlier. So for instance, as we bring Quellaveco on stream, it will be using fully-renewable electricity from 2023 as will all of our South American operations. In terms of Paris alignment and whether targets were aligned to the 1.5-degree pathway is complex. And there is not a single consensus definition of what this is or there's not alignment with Paris. We don't all understand the same thing in terms of what that means. Based on our work to date, we think that our Scope 1 and Scope 2 targets are ahead of expectations extrapolated from the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact from these peak emission levels. And I'm choosing my words very carefully, because those words are consistent with the commitments that we've made in public forum. We -- when we compare the emissions reductions we have targeted to deliver between 2020 and 2030, we are broadly aligned with the reduction trajectory of the many 1.5-degree IPCC pathways during that time frame. So in addition to setting reduction targets in any given year, it is also important to consider broader cumulative -- it is important to consider cumulative emissions over time. And on this basis, our emissions trajectory is also generally aligned with the IPCC pathways. Notwithstanding these points, we also recognize -- we also recognize the importance of external verification and have, therefore, recently engaged the Carbon Trust to conduct a review of the Scope 1 and 2 profiles and its alignment with climate pathways. And also, our Scope 1 and 2 emissions target of carbon neutrality by 2040 is well within the range of Paris Aligned scenarios that are out there. Now as you will have noticed, I stuck to the script on that wording because I know those definitions mean a lot to the people that are on the call. We also have our experts with us today. If there are any questions on those interpretations, or we can actually do follow-ups to explain exactly where we are so that you're comfortable with how we're attacking the issues and that we're consistent with the broader commitments and expectations that have been made through these various forums. So this is something we take very seriously. We follow the programs. We debate the key points, and we make sure that we're on track to deliver on our key commitments. So again, from our point of view, we think it is very important in terms of the credibility of the company and certainly the integrity of the work we're doing to make sure that you're comfortable that we're tracking those commitments appropriately. Next slide, please. In South Africa, while there is an abundance of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, there is limited renewable infrastructure to harness it. So we need to think beyond our minds with a combination of on-site and off-site wind probably closer to the coast, and solar to the north, where it makes most sense in terms of energy intensity. Now, we have to balance the energy intensity objectives with where we can actually distribute energy from Mpumalanga ] which obviously the province that has the most infrastructure for distribution. So there may be some compromises on the intensity, but it's about making sure we make it a workable system across the country that aids and a bit our focus, and at the same time, helps South Africa meet this objective. So it's a win-win and it's a multistate of the investment strategy. Our partnership with EDF Renewables brings in significant skill and expertise to the ecosystems design and development, and we're looking at a 3 to 5 gigawatt increase to grid capacity. The investment is to be funded by a number of equity partners and debt financing typical for a high-quality infrastructure project. Now remember, all those programs outside the mine sense would be multi-user access points, and so from our point of view, the funding of those programs is generally well understood in the public space. For those programs that we're working on inside the fence, they're generally part of our expansions, for example, in Mogalakwena, and it comes within the cost justification of those expansion projects. So our funding is pretty well understood. It's about improving the operations, making us more efficient, and so it's a real win-win in terms of the way we're setting up the business for the longer term. Our work in South Africa is an example of how we're working with our host governments to support their national climate goals. South Africa's NDC specifically state the need for public-private partnerships, and we're obviously trying to play our part. 18 months ago, the public policy space was very different and our ability to build the type of renewable capacity we're looking for was almost impossible. But through constructive and deliberate engagement about how we can play our part in the solution for South Africa and not just on our own carbon emissions, along with other changes in stakeholder expectations, that's meant that we're now all in a very different place. And having the types of public-private partnership discussions, we know we need to have to move the programs forward. The recent announcement of a 100-megawatt capacity available to be built in private hands was a direct consequence of the work that we've done with the government in South Africa on this exact point. So it is -- we are being successful, and to give credit to South Africa, they're listening and they're a very willing partner in the whole program and making through the benefits as well. What's particularly exciting about this work is it not only supports a safe decarbonization journey, but it makes a big difference to the country. And given the funding that they've secured from the Scottish work or the Glasgow accord, there's certainly a real momentum starting to build in South Africa in terms of implementing those programs. So this is a sort of thing that can't be done alone. It needs effective collaboration and partnership across business and government, and we're certainly in the middle of those conversations and doing everything we can to both be a catalyst for designing much broader solutions, and at the same time being very practical in terms of delivering outcomes that work for all of our stakeholders, our shareholders, employees and all of our other third-party stakeholders. Next slide, please. About half of our Scope 3 emissions relate to our iron ore business and, in total, about 77% of our Scope 3 emissions are from the steel making value chain. The decarbonization of the industry is therefore key to reducing our emissions. Our ambition to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 50% by 2040 is driven by partnership and collaboration. We'll continue to work with the steel industry towards achieving a 1.5-degree pathway which would reduce our Scope 3 emissions by around 80% by 2040 against the 2020 baseline. And you know where we got the 50 percentile, but certainly, we'd love to see and want to try and do our bit to get us towards that 80% number. The ecosystem approach we use to deliver renewables to the mines instead of mine-by-mine approach will provide opportunities to connect value chain, and that's the Scope 3 pliers, and therefore, directly impact their emission profile. The high-quality iron ore in our portfolio suits clean and modern steelmaking. They contribute on our high-quality iron ore feed, actually help enable a 20% to 25% lower carbon emission in the steelmaking process compared to a 58% iron ore blend, for example, from other areas. And we're working to further improve our product qualities as we lever what we can control directly. Certainly a very strong case for our niche position in iron ore, and certainly one that supports our high-margin delivery from the business as well. We also have to continue to work with our customers to advance technologies in these areas and others. For example, Salzgitter has embarked on a big transformation program to move away from steelmaking based on blast furnaces towards steelmaking based on DRI. As part of this, we're working with them to study if our lump ore can be used in their process, and if so, how much. We've ordered 10 LNG vessels for our chartered fleet, offering significant environmental benefits including a 35% cut in CO2 emissions compared to standard marine fuel while also addressing the old problem of methane slip through new technology. We also recently announced a successful sea trial of a Capesize carrier powered by a biofuel blend from TotalEnergies. We resulted in -- which resulted in a 10% emissions reduction, and an improvement on our previous trial in June '21 that had a 5% reduction. This is part of the pathway to achieving carbon neutrality in a controlled ocean-freight by 2040. And again, with TotalEnergies and others, partnering with good partners that are committed to the energy transition with us. So we're also working on the controllables as we always do. And importantly, also working on the collaboration and partnering that will be necessary to address the wider question, hence, the quality of our inputs into the steel industry. Next slide, please. Now to touch on another topic that is absolutely critical to the last quarter, both from a simple business continuity perspective and also for our local communities who obviously depend on the provision of potable water. I'll talk to our water reduction and water efficiency goals and also explain how we think about water a little differently to carbon emissions. It's about stewardship, and how we can actually improve things for our communities beyond just reductions in our own usage. Next slide, please. In 2018, and as part of our sustainable mining plan, we set some very ambitious targets for reducing our water footprint. The first was a commitment to reduce our extraction of fresh water in water-scarce catchments by 50% by the year 2030. In addition, we set an immediate target of reducing freshwater extraction by 20% by the year 2020. By fresh water, we mean naturally occurring water that, in technical term, meets the criteria. Water Accounting Framework, that's WAF, category 1, excluding precipitation and runoff that cannot reasonably be prevented from entering into our operational process. Again, I'm sticking to the script because those definitions are very important, and something that we're developing and making sure we're aligning on -- in the way we're managing our processes. And hopefully, it connects with your understanding of the same terms. I also want to stress that this target is focused on our operations located in water-scarce catchments, which is 83% of our operation, where the impact of freshwater savings will be the greatest both on our own water security, but also in terms of benefits to our neighboring communities and the environment. We have now put in place a pathway for the achievement of our ambitious 50% reduction target. This pathway includes concrete initiatives developed since we launched the SMP 4 years ago, the Sustainable Mining Plan. For example, at Los Bronces, we're investigating a solution which involves the replacement of the bulk of our current freshwater sources we treated municipal wastewater in a unique swap agreement that delivers freshwater to the local Valparaiso community. While we would have an offtake agreement for water not suitable for human consumption. It's a win-win, but as in other cases collaboration in partner -- with partners is key to achieving this. And in fact, I was there at Los Bronces last week. I've got no doubt the teams working hard on this and other initiatives in terms of water, and they really are doing some fantastic industry-leading work in terms of ensuring that we improve the security of our business and doing work that connects with the communities and making sure the 2 are in sync. And whilst our SMP targets relate to only to our managed operations, but for JVs, we have similar work out going, and we're working with our partners to make sure that we're similarly committed to making improvements. At Collahuasi, we're investing $1.1 billion in a desalination plant, securing water over our current production levels as well as partly facilitating future expansion. So again, that's an important part of the process. We're keeping an eye on both the environmental aspects of the business and in terms of the economies and future potential as we grow the business. Next slide, please. On water management and efficiency, the second target we set as part of the SMP was also related to reducing our water footprint. Water efficiency is a measure of the percentage of water in our operations that we either reuse or treat and recycle, thereby helping us reduce the amount we need to draw from external sources. So improved water efficiency supports our freshwater reduction targets, but with the additional benefit of reducing water discharge offside. The aim is to prioritize the use of lower quality water in our operations, freeing up the good stuff for other uses. Again, that's a key program that we've developed at Los Bronces. The target we set as part of the SMP was to reach 75% water efficiency in 2020. In that year, we recorded an efficiency of 81%. And last year, we reached 83%, and we plan to build on these improvements via studies to identify initiatives before identified initiatives and technologies that will continue our improvement journey. Many of these initiatives involve water treatment technologies that allow us to treat internal flow streams to the right quality needed elsewhere in the operating cycle. For example, at our CapCoal -- Met Coal operation in Australia, we've installed a reverse osmosis plant to treat waste streams from the open cut to produce high-quality water for use of the new Aquila underground mine. The RO plant as we call it, is in operation, and the capacity is being increased to provide additional high-quality recycled water for use in our washing of coal as well. Next slide, please. It's not enough for us to reduce our water -- water footprint. As water stewards, we are working towards ensuring the water assets we manage and the savings we achieve by reducing our water footprint translate into making additional water resources available in ways that are socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial. In 2021, we completed global assessment of water stewardship practices at all of our operations. We continue to engage in water-related initiatives to improve the lives of local communities around our operations, including supplying water, building dams, supporting infrastructure, and we do more. In South Africa and South America, in particular, we support a variety of water steward initiatives. These initiatives range from water supply projects with our partners and providing drinking water to our communities through infrastructure projects with the local government. So we're working with all of our stakeholders in these important work program areas. As part of this year's update of our Sustainable Mining Plan, we will consider opportunities to increase the volumes of water put to beneficial use in the communities and environment in which we operate. And we have Patrick and [ Giovanni ] here if you've got any detailed questions that you'd like us to unpack in terms of what we're doing on those programs later in the Q&A. Next slide, please. Thanks to Quellaveco, our water supply project was one of the key initiatives that came out of our dialogue table commitments we agreed with the community back in 2012, which was around defining how Quellaveco could best contribute to the long-term sustainable development of the area, and that means outside of the operations, which included stabilizing ecological flows in the Tambo Water Basin. Again, I'll just come back from Quellaveco and look at the positive impacts the water projects has had on the local community, and their significance. The water supply in this basin comes from 2 main sources, the Titire River and the Vizcachas river. The Titire River is naturally contaminated due to its volcanic origins, making it unsuitable for agricultural use and cattle raising. While the Vizcachas River is much higher quality water, but has large seasonal variations in volume. So as part of the dialogue table commitments, we agreed to make the Titire our principal water supply, about 80%. That's 80% of the supply for the mine, not to the actual river size, for the mine because it's water came from Titire, which was a lower quality product. We will reduce the degree to which it contaminates the higher quality water from other areas downstream, therefore, or thereby benefiting farmers and other users. So previously, most farmer were only able to operate 6 months in a year. This effectively gives them usable water 12 months of the year, so really positive impact both in terms of the farmers and the local economy. In addition, we agreed to build a dam with multi-year reservoir capacity of 60 million cubic meters on the Vizcachas River, which is the middle of the map, to help regulate flows and mitigate the seasonal variation of variability in volumes and quality, providing year-round clean water for those users, and I've talked about that impact. This is essentially our swap for communities of bad quality water from the Titire River for good quality and reliable supply from the Vizcachas River during the dry season, and this approach is considered a prime example of best water stewardship practice in the field of water mining.

Mark. While after 9 years, he actually sticks to script. And you made it sound like it was almost painful. Now, I want to come back to another key area of focus for us, and it talks to our workforce and our local communities. And remember, these are, in very many cases, the same people. Next slide, please. We show this approach to you in April last year, how we've been working with -- for some time towards a safe, more inclusive and diverse culture. We continue to take a holistic approach under these 4 pillars: Inclusive leadership, as this has to come from the top leadership that empowers employees while being accountable, courageous and humble. This becomes infused in a culture where colleagues are valued and respected, and where everyone feels they can bring their best selves to work, whoever they are across all dimensions of inclusion. We also need a safe environment, and we look beyond just the workplace here. Domestic and gender-based violence is not restricted by culture, geography or economic status. It's sad to say, but it is endemic across society. Examples of interventions include; risk assessment and safety plan; provision of safe accommodation for employees and immediate family who need to leave their own in an emergency; paid leave of up to 10 days in each 12-month period; flexible working time; financial assistance; HR support for line managers, providing support to colleagues affected by domestic abuse. So just to give you an idea of some of the interventions. And our fourth pillar is to provide a fair and supportive workplace. Relevant to what has become a much higher profile issue in recent times, especially during COVID, is mental health and well-being. Having the culture, mindset and systems in place is so important to help us stay ahead so that we can be the company that our employees and our communities want and deserve. As you can see, we are ranked highly within the industry by some of the rating and rankings out there. But this is not about achieving those goals, but it's about actually embedding sustainable improvement. And of course, this is in tune with our purpose to reimagine mining to improve people's lives. I won't go through these in detail again, but we continue to make progress across the board. For example, in this year's Responsible Mining Index, where we scored highest overall across the industry, we were ranked best in terms of community well-being, gender and harm prevention as well as second in working conditions. And with our commitment to our living wage, we stand in good stead for the workplace rating for next year. Next slide, please. We have zero tolerance for any form of bullying, harassment or victimization. There is no room for complacency when it comes to culture. Building and maintaining a workplace culture is constant work, which is why we listen very carefully to our people and to other stakeholders that are close to our business. Building a safe and inclusive culture is a journey that we have been on for a number of years. We have conducted several baseline studies with a number of our NGO partners as well as doing our own employee surveys across the group since 2018. These surfaced how our employees experience our company. And as you can no doubt imagine, not all of the feedback has been positive. We have been listening and we've been taking action. We have made some good progress, but there is so much work to do to tackle this incredibly complex issue. This slide shows just a few examples of the steps in our journey. In January 2020, we launched our Stand Up for Everyone campaign, which trained our employees on how to recognize and take action against bullying, harassment and victimization. With 96% of our Anglo American colleagues -- contracted colleagues taking part in the training, we made it clear what behaviors we will not accept. Just last month, we launched our new Living with Dignity hub in South Africa. The hub personnel will give expert, victim-centric support to anyone in the business who needs advice on bullying, harassment, victimization and gender-based violence or wants to report an incident. They will make sure complaints are handled independently, efficiently, professionally and with compassion. The hub is overseen by an independent ambassador to ensure we stand by our policies and our values. In 2022, we are also starting to conduct a culture audit across parts of our organization, and these initiatives are the bedrock that helps everyone within the organization feel included and that they belong. And if we don't get this right, well, then we will never achieve our psychological safety. Next slide, please. Antnio Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, recently described gender-based violence as a political global pandemic that is a mark of shame on all of our societies, and it is that. It is a societal issue where everyone needs to play their part. We cannot and we must not stand by while there are incidents of this kind in our business. This is no different to safety. We don't accept that anyone should be harmed, physically or psychologically, in the course of their work. We also will not stand by when we can play a part in supporting the safety of women, and it is predominantly women, outside of our mine gates. In 2019, we launched our Living with Dignity framework in support of the UN Women's Orange the World campaign, and it is designed to do exactly that. Ensure safe workplaces and use our leverage to support safe homes, safe schools and safe communities. This approach is aligned with the ecological model on the right of the slide, which recognizes the complexity and the interrelatedness of gender-based violence, risk factors at an individual, family, community, organization and social level. We cannot sustain meaningful change if we tackle any one of these areas alone. The whole ecosystem needs to be considered. As I touched on the previous slide, our work on safe workplaces and safe homes has largely been implemented through our Stand Up for Everyone and domestic violence programs. Looking outside the mine gate, our focus has been taken up in 2020 by responding to the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence linked to COVID-19. In brief, our work involved extensive campaigns to communicate how victims can access support and working with community primary health care workers to identify and refer cases of gender-based violence and domestic violence. It's actually integrating gender-based violence into their health assessments. We have worked with the University of Pretoria to map Pathway to Care in many of our host communities. This means that we have identified how people can access care in the event of gender-based violence, and have started assessing the quality of the care provided. To help address the root cause of gender-based violence, we have contracted a consortium of organizations to develop a violence prevention capacity building program that also challenges harmful gender norms. The consortium organizations like the Institute -- like the Institute of Security Studies, Rios Partners and the Prevention Collaborative in South Africa are some of the best in the fields of violence prevention and systems change. The program, which is under development, seeks to deliver sustainable mindset shifts among participants while empowering them to integrate violence prevention and think about the harmful gender norms in their own work, and respond to cases that they encounter in the course of their work for Anglo American and other companies. We are currently integrating gender-based violence prevention and response measures into our Sustainable Mining Plan's starting community stretch goals, given how interlinked so many of the issues are. At the moment, the team is working on integrating gender-based violence initiatives into the operational community health plans that are being developed around the world, starting with Unki Mine in Zimbabwe. Well, I would like to talk to you about impact. It is just too early in our journey, but watch this phase. There's so much more to come. Mark, back over to you.

Thanks, Anik. Before I go to my final remarks, I think it's important to just reflect for a second on that last -- a couple of slides from Anik. Firstly, gender-based violence is one that, from an industry perspective, has been a massive issue, particularly when you look at our connected communities, and in many cases, isolated working. So it really is a critical and significant program that we have to work on. It's very clear when we see it. Understanding how to address it in the community context is a very big part of the work program. It's not simply a workplace issue, it's actually something that goes far beyond that. So that's a really important piece of work. The second point I'd make is, and it's a far more subtle bit, on bullying and behaviors in the workplace. And we're a global organization with many different cultures -- countries, nationalities, cultures and languages. And even the difference in the language we use, and I mean the languages and some of the terminologies we use, can be interpreted as bullying in different cultures. So that subtlety is really something you have to think about very differently across the organization, and it's not an easy one because quite often, someone that is exhibiting bullying behavior actually doesn't mean to. But it's the way they articulate and maybe verbalize certain issues. So making sure that we've got a very open and transparent conversation and try and deal this in a -- deal with this in a very constructive way is a really important part of the work, and it's not a straightforward black-and-white type issue. So it's a really big piece of work that we're going through, and we're working in all its dimensions. And it's one of those things, it's a far more subtle issue that needs a lot of work, and we still got a long way to go in that journey. But I think the most important point I want to make is we're on it, but it is a very subtle one that requires us to think very differently in terms of our global context and the different cultures we work within, and how some of those cultural connections need to be reworked and we need to understand each other a little better across a whole range of fronts. And so that's something that we're working on and trying to getting signed off as part of our process. So next slide. Thank you, and thanks, Anik. You've done a great job in explaining some of those critical issues. So we've been hearing people talk about ESG for the past few years, but we've always preferred to use the term sustainability because it talks about every part of the business, and it goes beyond ESG. resources, talent, all of those issues must be dealt with to make sure your business is sustainable. It's a far broader term, and it all has to be integrated to be a sustainable business, driven by purpose, considering people, planet and profit. You need to look at all aspects of sustainability together, not as separate areas of activity, because there are also many intricate connections and none of them stand by themselves. Portfolio wise, we have evolved towards products that play into future demand trends, driven in many cases by sustainably-related factors. And if you remember, when we started locking down the portfolio restructuring, we kept a careful eye on those areas that we wanted to bring in. We do focus on the quality of the asset, but the natural breadth and spread of our portfolio, I think, is second enough in terms of positioning to play an important role in society for the longer term. Copper plays into demand driven by decarbonization and urbanization. And our new acquisition, our Crop Nutrients business, will be driven by demand to feed a growing population sustainably, and it has a big impact of decarbonization as well. At the same time, the way we run the business, considering the economic, environmental and social impacts of our decisions through full impact decision-making, which Stephen has talked about before. And recognizing the interconnectivity of issues, and as Stephen said, we'd like to try and get the business balanced because that has to be if it's going to be sustainable. And for example, land use implications of renewables infrastructure as well as potential socioeconomic opportunities that are switched to renewables might drive. It is profit with purpose, and not one before the other. From our point of view, these subtleties are the things that we debate as a team to try and make sure we're on the leading edge of these conversations and implementing what we believe are sustainable solutions for the business. These ways of thinking are embedded into our governance and performance management processes to drive sustainable value for all of our stakeholders. At the same time, we recognize that we exist in an evolving environment. You've seen us introduce commitments to carbon neutrality, Scope 3 emissions and payment of a living wage to all employees since we first announced our Sustainable Mining Plan in 2018, and we will continue to evolve and build on our commitments to remain a leader in this area. And now we're not where we want to be, but we're going in and heading in the right direction. And we are the first to admit that we still got a long way to go, but we are making good progress and we are building foundations in terms of taking the business forward in an appropriate way. And finally, we believe the delivery of sustainable returns to all our stakeholders is an imperative that will define the long-term success of our business. We're well positioned to deliver as we are differentiated with the combination of technical, marketing and sustainable capabilities that have been developed as a competitive advantage in our rapidly-changing external environment. Coupling these capabilities with our world-class assets, strong balance sheet and ongoing improved -- our ongoing improvement journey puts us in a very strong position as we focus on positioning ourselves for a low-carbon future. Now given that today will be my last presentation in terms of the sustainability story, I am disappointed I'm not delivering a business that I would have liked to have delivered. I think COVID has taken some time back office, and we don't have our plans fully in place in terms of those areas that we need to work and operationally, we can be doing better. But we certainly have a range of foundations that set us up for the future. And I know with Duncan and his commitments and with the team that he has behind him, they will deliver on our potential, and he will do much better than me in taking the business forward from where we are today. And that what -- that's what makes me excited about the Anglo American of today. It's about the leadership, the future we have and the team we have in place to touch us forward. We have been clear in how we measure our delivery. We target a better than 10% free cash flow on capital employed through the price cycle as the prime measure of our effectiveness as a business. If you're not delivering free cash flow, and it has to be at least 10% to make with sure you're funding dividends and you're investing in improvements and profitable growth in the business, and that will delay -- that will deliver your longer-term sustainable returns to our shareholders, employees and all of our stakeholders. This year, we can see that at 31%, we've obviously been the beneficiaries of good price cycles. We have to deliver that 10% through the cycle, and certainly, from our point of view, we're in a position to do that. To measure our efficiency in delivering sustainable cash flows, we aim to do better than a 15% return on capital employed, again through the price cycle. And again, at 43% for 2021 where we are performing exceptionally well, and certainly, that does all go well in terms of our performance through the cycle. And sustainability on those 2 metrics is across -- is measured across our 7 key pillars, which is safety and health; environment; sociopolitical; people, that includes the talent pipeline and you've seen that in action with our succession plan, and Duncan taking over the business; production-based resources, making sure that we can deliver better than 20 years in our reserve base. And that's exceptional in our industry where we're mining depleted resources cause significant improvement in our competitive cost position over the last few years. Lot tougher than the last couple of years, and COVID has had its impact, but the teams, getting ourselves balanced during the course of this year, I think, will correct and get ourselves headed in the right direction. Then ultimately, keeping a conservative balance sheet so that we're able to act on opportunities, invest in the right things. And as Stephen says, make sure we've got the balance across the portfolio. And when you look at the work that we've done technically in all of those areas in business improvement, I think it's an exciting place to be. And with the technical team and the work that Tony and the guys have done, I think we're in a very different place to most in terms of our competitive position. All 7 pillars are what we think about when we come to work each day, and what Duncan, Anik, Stephen, Tony and the rest of the team will take forward in delivering the best they can for all of our stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, local communities and everyone else that takes an interest is seeing what we can do to serve society. So for that -- or with that, very happy to take questions, any questions you may have.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Sylvain Brunet from BNP Paribas.

Mark, Anik. My first question could be slightly broader one, but like very much focused on safety. We know there is no quick win, even how much effort you deploy in the field. In your experience, Mark, what would you say the next team should focus on to get there, to get to this level? Do you sense that more automation, use technology where it can be done to reduce the exposure of personnel should be the main lever? Do you think it's doable everywhere? Are there some issues? I mean, including some cultural issues, perhaps at Moranbah that you sense need to be fixed? These KPIs at middle management level that have to be made even stricter. What is it maybe on the even recruitment policy that maybe Anglo American will need to be a lot more demanding about? I mean, what would you -- what would you say are the most actionable levers?

Thanks Sylvain. Look, you actually touched on some key points, so let me make the first observation. In my view, with COVID over the last couple of years and with the massive focus on looking after people, trying to protect people, I think our planning of work and with the high levels of absenteeism, we haven't got the right level of planned work, and that's something we analyze very carefully. So our planned work has dropped away, and so that's where there's a lot of work at the moment, getting our disciplines back in getting that planned level of work. And we're probably down about 30% in terms of planned work, so that's a key area and a key focus area. And in the mining industry, we're not good at planning our work compared to industrial organizations, so that industrialization of Anglo that I talk about has dropped back a bit in my view, and that's why we've seen a leveling of the performance. That we've improved fatal incidents by 90%, but we haven't got to 0, and I think we've leveled off, so that's a key area of focus. Sylvain, in fact, we had a call this morning with all of our managers across the globe on that point, so really important. Make sure we step forward now and get ourselves back to that planned work. Secondly, on technology, now, I'll just came back form Quellaveco. Automation, the digital mine, all of that work is absolutely critical in removing people from areas of exposure, and that was a great lesson from Grosvenor as well. So with the starting of the new longwall, we're actually running the longwall from the surface of ], that's a key step. Moranbah with the new longwall that it's moving towards will also go into that same place, and again, that focus on the planning work that goes with that because you can't totally remove people from all areas of work. So you've got to make sure all the those process are planning, the technology to create low prices. Tonnage work on technology with the operating leaders is, I think, critical in the next 12 to18 months. And that focus on the planning is, I think, going to be the most important part in resetting the bars. Finally, you also talked about recruitment. Recruitment has become a very important issue for us, and it's about making sure that we're hiring people that don't have a tendency towards taking risk beyond what we see as a normal distribution in society. So those assessment processes and making sure we understand risk-taking behaviors is becoming a very important part of our recruitment employees across the group. So we're using all of those tools to try and take that step to achieve net-zero harm. Interestingly, I don't know if you understand the statistics, but over the 9 years, we've gone from being one of the worst performers at the ICMM to one of the best performers from a safety perspective. And we've actually, on the numbers, reached safe industry status, but that's still not good enough. We've got to get to 0, and that's what the company is committed to. And I know that will be Duncan's first priority in terms of the work going forward. And certainly, there's a lot of work post-COVID trying to make sure we've got all of those disciplines in place.

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Hatch from Berenberg.

Mark and team, and congrats again on a really good progress from the middle of 2010. Can I just ask a question just on the water reduction target on Slide 19. You talked quite extensively about what you're doing at Bronces, but I wonder the you might just be able to expand a bit on the other activities at Sishen, Amandelbult and CapCoal, please?

Okay. One of the -- just Bronces we have to make sure that we explain our targets well because we're in a significant drought situation at Los Bronces. The average rainfall of Los Bronces 10 years ago is about 350 millimeters a year. In the last 2 years, we've had 70 millimeters and 80 millimeters, and so we've been doing water harvesting. So our actual consumption of fresh water increases when the rain flow returns. The key thing to measure is our efficiency work, and that getting to that 90% or I think it's about 80% efficiency work of around 75% target has been exceptional work, and the learnings from Los Bronces have been very much applied to Sishen and other parts of the business. So maybe if I can ask Patrick to help us understand the specifics in the other areas that you identified, I think you talked Sishen. What else could you say there, Pat? Sorry, Richard?

It's Amandelbult and CapCoal, Slide 19.

Okay. All right. Patrick, are you okay with that?

Yes, I am, Mark. Thanks for the question, Richard. Yes. So at -- without getting into a lot of detail at Sishen, for example, we pump out a lot of ground water. There, we're looking at increasing the amounts of that groundwater that we are able to divert to the local regional bulk water facility, which is a large pipeline that serves the area, and also doing some management up for recharge to be able to put more water at the disposal of local communities. At Amandelbult, as part of the growth plan there, we're looking at increasing the amount of water that we're able to recycle within the mine, increased storage facilities to reduce the amount of water that we would have to lose from the site and keep it on the site and there for privilege and reduce the water that's brought in from potable water sources. And in Met Coal, I think Mark mentioned it in the presentation there. Again, it's a recycle opportunity, which goes both to benefit our efficiency and our freshwater and essentially reduce the amount that's brought into the system by recycling more within the system. I'm not sure if that covers that, Richard.

Yes, it does. Very helpful. And can I just ask one follow-up? Just in the release you talked -- I mean, it's great to see that you're beating that target. And I guess, when do we hear about the updated new target from the water efficiency standpoint? Does that come with the second update later on this year?

Sorry, go ahead, Mark.

No, Patrick, you should go for it.

Yes. So our intent, Richard, is to set a new target for 2030 during the course of this year as part of our SMP update. We're currently doing what we did with the freshwater target, that is to put in place a pathway that's built up of concrete initiatives, and we intend to announce that target at the end of this year or early next year as part of the update. Yes.

Richard -- just to give Patrick and the team a pat on the back, our water balances when we started this work were pretty -- were pretty weak, and so a real focal point has been on capturing and making sure we've got all our water balances. And then we take that information and we look and connect to the communities, and understand the difference we can make inside those communities. So that whole program it's been a big piece of work over the last 5 years, and I think we're only really starting to understand the additional steps we can take. And I think those examples that Patrick gave just sort of gives you a sense of how we're connecting that work on the internal water balances with the external sources, and then understanding how we can impact and support our communities. And so the reason I talked about Los Bronces and my observations as I've literally just come back from the site, but we've taken a lot of those learnings into those operations as well. So some are mature -- more mature than others, but the work is happening, and Patrick and the guys are really doing a good job supporting the teams.

Your next question comes from the line of Danielle Chigumira from Credit Suisse.

A couple of questions from me initially. And the first one, looking at your Slide 14, you have a significant reduction in fugitive methane emissions, even though the same period that we expect higher Met Coal volumes. Could you talk to the specific initiatives you're doing to kind of square the circle there? That's the first question.

Yes. In terms of emissions from methane, obviously, the methadone drainage work and that is a preemptive step to try and make sure that we're managing our emissions down, and that work is further supported with the preemptive methane drainage work that we saw post the Grosvenor incident a few years back. So a lot of work has been done connected to Grosvenor to make sure our safety environment is -- or safety in the operations is improved, and that impacts Moranbah as well. On the actual future of emissions in the forward-looking program, Pierre, can you give us a couple of words on that?

Sure. So as you said, Mark, there is a series of things that are happening in parallel. It's about drainage, it's about capture of methane when it's concentrated to a level it can be used as a fuel, it's about flaring of some of the options, so it's a series of things that are happening. And in parallel, we have engaged on a development on the ventilated air methane, which is actually the methane that we are blowing away from the operating shaft of the mine to avoid explosion. So we are diluting the methane and actually, it ends up in the atmosphere. And there, we have looked for years about several options, and now we are on the process of developing what we call a reduction technology. So it's a catalytic reduction technology which enables, I would say, to neutralize and transform the methane, as you say, in the farm. The ventilated methane into CO2 for further treatment. So the process of development, so it's really on the innovation stage at this moment, is going on. And one of the key element, of course, there is safety. So we are putting a lot of emphasis on safety in our development. We are collaborating with an organization called LETA, Low Emission Technology Australia in an open way, so what we are doing there as well. I would say the learning can be shared further as we progress, so this is where we are. And what you have seen there, of course, you see the curve, it doesn't tell all the story because inside this curve, you've got so many details. And the other thing we do as well, we are looking at converting all the energy we use there away from the methane option. So it includes actually as well the energy we use to operate the mine to renewable, and we will come back on that. It's work in progress.

Yes. I think, Danielle, it's a good question because I think of all the technologies we're working on in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and I think it's part of the Scope 1 emission, it's probably the most complex of the technologies to get right, and the one that we're working hard to make sure we target it by 2030. So it's the right question, it's a complex piece of work. There are multiple technologies and multiple answers, and I think it's one of our most important areas. And it's something that we will keep you updated. And we're also in discussions with unit as part of the process to make sure that we connecting and talking to the right issues and addressing the questions that are being asked of us. So it's an important question. I will keep you posted on subsequent presentations on our progress on that point.