Mining activity is often considered synonymous with environmental impact on land, air and water. Highland Gold’s management is unequivocally committed to the pursuit of responsible practices and continuously works towards reducing our environmental impact while observing all relevant regulatory requirements.
The Company's HSE policy forms the guiding principle for setting our strategy towards the management and stewardship of our environment. We aim to protect the environment by:
- mitigating our impact on it and taking environmental considerations into our business planning;
- complying with all applicable laws, regulations and standards; and
- setting objectives and targets, monitoring and reviewing environmental performance, including risk assessment in order to achieve continual improvement.
Highland Gold's Environmental Management System (“EMS”), a key part of the Company's management system across the lifecycle of our operations, from exploration, to acquisition or development of assets, and production. The Company’s EMS takes into account corporate goals, the requirements and expectations of stakeholders, legislative requirements, and the requirements of ISO 14001: 2015 international standards.
Based around our core values, the EMS also sets out the leadership structures, policies, processes, responsibilities of all staff towards the Company’s HSE policy, including the management and mitigation of environmental risks, and the continuous improvement of environmental practices. We regularly call upon external consultants to conduct supervisory audits of our EMS and ensure compliance with ISO 14001-2015 standards. Our ISO 14001-2015 certification can be found in the ESG Documents page of the website.
Each year, thousands of Highland Gold employees receive some form of environmental training. The Company also engages with employees on environmental initiatives, such as an ongoing effort to improve sorting of solid waste for recycling.
Highland Gold includes basic information on key environmental programmes in each of its published quarterly production reports. More substantial details on our performance in such areas as energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and waste management are included in the Company's Sustainability Report.