Chairman, Safety & Sustainability message

The mining and resources industry is the engine of many economies around the world and a cornerstone of human progress. As one of the world’s largest gold mining companies, we have a responsibility and are in a privileged position to make a positive, sustainable difference to people and communities.

The loss of a colleague is news no-one ever wants to hear. Sadly, this was the news when a colleague and team member of a contract partner recently lost his life in connection to a critical incident at our Brucejack operations. We can only imagine the grief and sadness their family and loved ones feel, all of whom remain deep in our thoughts.

When it comes to people’s safety, it’s not negotiable. In FY22, we saw an increase in recordable injuries across our business. Learning from these incidents, we strengthened our focus on critical control management and the behaviours needed to support people to make safe choices daily, as part of our NewSafe program.

NewSafe underpins our safety transformation strategy and in 2022 we expanded our NewSafe program to place a greater focus on psychological safety. This year, we also commenced development of a program that focuses on building understanding of the behaviours that support a psychologically safe work environment. Through the findings from the public inquiries into sexual assault and harassment in the mining industry, it is clear more needs to be done to ensure people feel safe to raise concerns, bring issues to the surface and speak up when things don’t feel right. By strengthening our focus on a psychologically safe workplace, we will also support people to thrive and be their best in achieving the outcomes for an even brighter future.

In 2022, we continued to fund programs and initiatives to support preparations and response to the COVID-19 pandemic by local communities. This included support for vaccine rollouts in multiple communities and upgrades to community health facilities in Papua New Guinea, the development of the first intensive care unit in Ecuador’s Zamora Chinchipe province, food and household goods hampers in Canada, iPads for students and local business support in Australia. Feedback on the positive impact to people and communities was humbling.

Newcrest’s vision is to be the Miner of Choice – a company that is valued, respected and celebrated by people, communities and employees not only for what we achieve, but importantly for our values and the way we work.
Our continued success is only possible through the commitment of Newcrest people. We can have all the best assets in the world, but without the skills, expertise and dedication of the people who work with us, we will not be able to realise the true value of those assets, and our vision.

On behalf of the Safety and Sustainability Committee and the Board, thank you to the many people who have been involved in our business over the past year, especially to the people on our great team who work tirelessly to create a brighter future for people and communities.

Roger Higgins

Chairman of the Safety and Sustainability Committee