“The sustainability of our mining activities depends on our ability to contribute to the well-being and prosperity of our mine communities

The sustainability of our mining activities depends on our ability to contribute to the well-being and prosperity of our mine communities. In South Africa, the challenging social context highlights the need for sustainable community development as both a commercial and social imperative. Many of our operations are in rural areas characterised by low levels of formal economic activity, and inadequate provision of infrastructure and services.

Social interventions

This strategic focus area recognises the importance of targeted social investments aimed at building sustainable local communities. Our approach is to provide financial resources and technical expertise to ensure effective implementation of the community projects outlined in the Social and Labour Plans (SLPs) for each of our operations. These SLP investments are supported by our enterprise development and procurement practices, our significant investments in housing and living conditions for employees, and our collaborative research initiatives.

• Our procurement strategy prioritises potential opportunities for promoting new entrants into the procurement space, with a particular focus on small and medium black-owned local enterprises, as well as companies owned by historically disadvantaged South Africans (HDSAs) that have benefited from our enterprise and supplier development initiatives.
• We have an advanced housing and living conditions strategy that seeks to promote decent living conditions for our employees; this includes investments in social amenities, education, infrastructure (such as roads, bulk water and power), as well as health facilities. Most of these investments are taken in collaboration with government institutions, other industry players and social partners in the affected regions.
• Our interventions are informed by detailed research in collaboration with other institutions. This year we completed two studies: a social impact assessment study undertaken in collaboration with the Royal Bafokeng Administration (see here), and a second study conducted through the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) funded by ourselves and other industry players.

Social investment

Our management approach to social investment

Our strategic approach to investing in socio-economic development initiatives focuses primarily on infrastructure, health, education, and community empowerment initiatives. The strategy aims to complement our accommodation and living conditions initiatives, through the provision of schools, clinics and other amenities. Our goal is to establish infrastructure that will address urgent needs in mine communities with the focus on longer-term impacts.

Our social programmes and investments are identified in collaboration with community representatives, the local municipality and traditional authority in our areas of operation. These are further aligned with the municipalities’ Integrated Development Plans (IDP) for the South African operations. Through the human resources committee, people investments are discussed on a monthly basis, taking into account skills development expenditure, the team mobilisation programme and other people-related initiatives. This is evaluated against team productivity, absenteeism, skills turnover and other indicators.

Our engagement forums consist of representatives from municipalities, communities, traditional authority, unions and management. These forums allow management to engage on various socio-economic investments. Performance elements are monitored and reported quarterly to the social ethics and transformation committee of the board.

Our SLPs are a critical component of our social investment activities. In March this year, the North West Regional Manager of the DMR granted Impala Platinum permission to proceed with the implementation of the second generation five-year SLP. This SLP was developed through an engagement process with the Mine Communities Leadership Engagement Forum (MCLEF) which involves the participation of representatives from the various mine communities at our operations, representatives of the municipality and traditional authority. The aim is to ensure that the SLP addresses the developmental needs of these communities. While there were some challenges and delays in the finalisation of the SLP, we believe that the consultation process for the second generation SLP was comprehensive and in line with the expectations of the mine communities and the DMR. Implementation of our Marula SLP has faced challenges as a consequence of fragmentation in communities. A consultation process through the local municipality and DMR is being explored in order to facilitate buy-in and speedy implementation.

Our 2015 performance and achievements for social investment

This year we invested R83 million in socio-economic development projects for our South Africa operations, inclusive of our SLP commitments, up from R71 million in 2014. An additional R228 million was spent on improving accommodation and living conditions of our employees (see here ). A detailed breakdown of our community investments is presented in the table below.

A review of our progress in developing homeownership houses and promoting enterprise development is provided later in this section.

South African operations socio-economic development expenditure (Rm)

Programme	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011
Empowerment of community structures	19	20	13	17	31
Health, safety and environment	1	1	2	2	2
Education	49	21	18	15	17
Government and municipality support infrastructure	7	17	45	34	38
Sport development	3	7	10	10	11
Enterprise development	2	3	5	9	28
Community welfare, arts and culture	2	2	9	3	3
Total socio-economic development expenditure	83	71	102	90	130
Housing and living conditions	228	261	445	430	277
Total sustainable development investment	311	332	547	520	407

Our focus on social investment for 2016 and beyond

• Ensure implementation of the approved SLP projects that were prioritised in consultation with Impala’s MCLEF in May 2015 for the Rustenburg operation; these include projects relating to the development and/or completion of infrastructure for schools, community centres, sporting facilities, offices, roads and storm water reticulation.
• Identify additional collaborative enterprise development initiatives that bolster economic activity in our areas of operation.
• Implementing our community communication plan to enhance information sharing.