Through our holistic stakeholder approach, Exxaro aims to build long-term, stable, mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders. Our engagements enable us to better understand, manage and respond to material risks and concerns, protect our licence to operate and create shared value.
We believe the value we create for our stakeholders is as important as the value we create for ourselves. Regular and ad hoc in-person engagements, social impact assessments and surveys inform our understanding of our social impact, and stakeholders’ needs and interests.
In this section, we describe our stakeholder management through our ERM framework lens.
Refer to the stakeholder-inclusive approach section of the ESG report for more information about our approach to stakeholder engagement, details of our key stakeholder relationships, the nature and quality of our relationships with strategic stakeholder groups and our responses to their concerns.
We use our ERM process and project workshops to identify our stakeholders and assess our impact on them and their impact on our business. We categorise our stakeholders into four key groupings – government, communities, business and value chain participants – and identify relevant engagement strategies and objectives as required.
Government
Value chain participation
Business
Communities
Engagement effectiveness is assessed through assurance and audits of our procedures and changes in risk ratings. We also measure perceptions of our engagement performance as part of a stakeholder survey.
While we engage regularly with multiple stakeholders, this report focuses on engagements most material to value creation and preservation.
No existing relationship or the relationship has challenges
Established relationship but can be improved
Good relationship with opportunity for improvement
Very strong relationship based on mutual trust and respect
| 2023 risk | Unavailability of rail capacity |
| Engagement purpose | Collaborate in finding solutions to improve logistics |
| Stakeholder | Transnet |
| Further reading | Our risks and opportunities |
Quality of relationship:
Stakeholder expectations and issues
Material themes
Key engagements and outcomes
Strategic objectives
| 2023 risk | Customer concentration risk |
| Engagement purpose | Eskom remains a key Exxaro customer. In 2023, Exxaro attributed 73% of sales to Eskom. Long-term agreements with Eskom at Matimba and Medupi place the coal business in a defensive position. We engage regularly in light of Eskom’s challenges. |
| Stakeholder | Eskom |
| Further reading | Our risks and opportunities |
Quality of relationship:
Stakeholder expectations and issues
Material themes
Key engagements and outcomes
Strategic objectives
| 2023 risk | Fatal risk incidents |
| Engagement purpose | Align employees’ focus with our health and safety strategy and culture for competitive advantage and resilient business performance. |
| Stakeholder | Employees |
| Further reading | Our risks and opportunities and building momentum with people |
Quality of relationship:
Stakeholder expectations and issues
Material themes
Key engagements and outcomes
Strategic objectives
| 2023 risk | Community unrest |
| Engagement purpose | We aim to build relationships and our understanding of community needs to enable collaboration and successful delivery of socio-economic development projects. Engagements enable us to proactively resolve issues or concerns raised by communities and avoid protest action. In addition, we aim to communicate how we create shared value through local employment and procurement, community development initiatives, skills development and ESD. |
| Stakeholder | Communities |
| Further reading |
Quality of relationship:
Stakeholder expectations and issues
Material themes
Key engagements and outcomes
Strategic objectives
| 2023 risk | Adverse threat to licence to operate and country risk |
| Engagement purpose | Proactive engagement supports our efforts to drive business resilience and manage risk. Exxaro plays a proactive role in finding solutions to socio-economic challenges and contributes to shaping government policies by collaborating and partnering with government. |
| Stakeholder | Government |
| Further reading | Our risks and opportunities, our strategy and Social (ESG report) |
Quality of relationship:
Stakeholder expectations and issues
| * | Multi-stakeholder issues. |
Material themes
Key engagements and outcomes
Several partnerships and initiatives enable us to address government’s expectations. These include:
Strategic objectives
We engage with all our stakeholders on climate change concerns as we aim to understand regulatory policy; empower employees, communities and value stream participants to manage climate change impacts; contribute to thought leadership; and communicate our decarbonisation plan.
Exxaro is committed to conducting climate lobbying in a responsible and sustainable manner as stated in our Climate Change Response strategy. Our goal is to also participate in stakeholder engagements on climate change in a manner that advances the achievement of the Paris Agreement objectives. We value industry associations and the platform they present for knowledge sharing and engagements on key issues such as climate policy, advocacy and the low-carbon transition.
We received a request from Just Share, Fossil Free South Africa and Aeon Investment Management ahead of our AGM in May 2023 to report on the alignment of our climate lobbying and policy engagement activities, and those of our affiliated industry associations, with the goals of the Paris Agreement. In response, we have engaged directly with Just Share to understand expectations, build trust and establish an advisory partnership to determine the way forward.
During our governance roadshow in September, investors voiced their satisfaction with Exxaro’s engagement with Just Share and suggested improving climate lobbying disclosure in our ESG and integrated reports.
Stakeholder expectations and issues
Material theme
Key engagements and outcomes
Strategic objectives
Report Index
IR