Our social approach to business is driven by our responsibility to be accountable for our actions and positively impact our people and communities – creating a holistic and lasting legacy for society.
As envisioned in our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy, we aim to deliver positive impact through our Social Impact strategy. These strategies help foster mutually beneficial relationships with our stakeholders and enhance the sustainability of our business.
We manage and mitigate the positive and negative impacts of our activities on the environment and society by creating socioeconomic development in our communities as we pursue operational efficiency, growth and regulatory compliance. We comply with South African mining industry regulations and Mining Charter III. We monitor legal and parliamentary processes to clarify the intent and standing of the charter. We also consider the long-term perspectives of government's strategies such as the 2030 National Development Plan and integrated development plans of local municipalities where we operate.
We endorse several external voluntary standards, charters and principles, including the UNGC and SDGs – going beyond compliance to achieve sustainable impact. We also participate in private-public partnerships and collaborative efforts (including industry forums such as the Minerals Council, BUSA and Business Leadership South Africa) aimed at prioritising sustainable and ethical business practices that not only enhance our reputation as a socially responsible organisation but drive positive social impact in our host communities.
Exxaro's social commitments align with ESG objectives embedded in our Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy:
We unpack our approach and performance against our social commitments in this chapter, and outline how we pursue sustainable growth and impact through the following lenses:
Further reading
Our commitment, accountability and responsibility, and going beyond compliance
Unpacked in this chapter
Measuring and monitoring our performance, and delivering on our strategy
Highlighted in this chapter and performance against our KPIs.
Adopting a stakeholder-inclusive approach
Engagements and collaboration in achieving our goals and initiatives summarised in this chapter, with stakeholder needs and concerns unpacked from the stakeholder-inclusive approach
Our social commitments, each supported by specific strategies and policies, are categorised into three key focus areas, summarised below.
Our overarching people strategy guides our employee engagement approach, supported by Exxaro's:
Safety strategy – to manage safety-related risks and prevent repeat incidents, guided by five safety pillars
Integrated health and wellness strategy – to identify and address occupational and nonoccupational health risks and their impacts on the business, supported by our culture themes
Culture transformation journey – to create an inclusive environment for employees to thrive, address systemic DEI barriers through the DEI strategy and help us maintain a representative leadership profile and workforce
Talent management strategy – to support organisational inclusivity by developing future capabilities and fostering a healthy working environment, enabled by supportive leadership and technology
Exxaro's DEI journey is a testament of how we are building momentum for sustainable growth and impact with our people.
Our future focus
Exxaro has achieved several milestones since our refocused DEI journey began:
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Achieved persons with disabilities targets at certain BUs within the minerals business |
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Launched an industry-leading anti-GBV campaign and partnerships |
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Doubled our HDP profile at senior management level in five years |
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Adopted gender equality and anti-racism charters |
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Developed and reviewed policies and charters in line with the DEI strategic focus |
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Initiated DEI capability building and awareness |
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Recorded an overall increase in representation of women at all occupational levels, from 1 546 in 2019 to 2 122 in 2023. In the past six years, the representation of black women in senior and middle management has increased by over 75% |
We aim to achieve tangible impact in our communities through Exxaro's Social Impact strategy, which is one of six key pillars of the Sustainable Growth and Impact strategy.
The Social Impact strategy fits into the social element of our ESG imperative while our implementation approach incorporates environmental and governance elements. This ensures sustainability, especially in relation to just transition considerations.
The strategy is a proactive response to mitigate the systemic social challenges in our communities through a long-term perspective. When viewed through the lens of the SDGs, this will have a lasting positive impact on communities and reduce poverty by combining ultidimensional approaches that address education, economic wellbeing and access to land for economic act. The strategy will also allow us to influence other areas of wellbeing without additional investment.
The strategy enables us to deliver impact at scale through the following key principles:
We developed our Social Impact strategy around three pillars: education (ECD and whole school development), land use management (mineral succession planning to find alternative economic uses of the land beyond mining) and SMME development (promoting local conomic development through local procurement and ESD initiatives). We measure our success in these areas through increased literacy and numeracy, development of agricultural enterprises and food production, and job retention/creation and increased turnover.
We are committed to promoting human rights and preventing adverse human rights impacts. Our human rights policy and due diligence reviews ensure we identify, prevent, mitigate and account for our response to human rights impacts.
We address human rights in the following areas:
The SERC oversees people’s health, safety, engagement and development. Our chief people
and performance officer, supported by various
management departments, is responsible for developing and implementing employee-related
strategies.
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