235 media group was creating a number of corporate films to be released around the COP29 conference, supporting the UN's sustainable development goals, and one of those was with Neal Froneman from Sibanye-Stillwater.
I was commissioned to film content which was then delivered to 235 media group for the final edit.
Questions asked in this interview
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0:38Could you outline for us the core objectives and strategies the company has adopted to integrate this focus into the business strategy?
3:26You're historically a gold mining company, but how is your existing portfolio of metals and operations diversified to address the challenges the climate faces?
4:28How do your strategies vary globally to accommodate the specific needs of the locations while still aligning on sustainability goals in each region?
5:45Thinking about changes in technology over the years, what advances is Sibanye-Stillwater utilizing to optimize the organization's environmental impact?
8:41And lastly, Neal, looking to the future of the company, what emerging initiatives are you most excited about the potential of, and how will they make a difference to the challenges discussed at COP this year?
Leading mining company Sibanye-Stillwater is setting industry standards and trailblazing with new technologies and initiatives to underpin the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Since its inception in 2013, CEO Neal Froneman has transformed Sibanye-Stillwater from a South African gold mining company into a multinational diversified mining and metals processing group. The company is pioneering sustainability, stewardship, and environmentally focused mining with community and ecology at the heart of what Sibanye-Stillwater does.
Thank you for joining us, Neal. Sibanye-Stillwater has made considerable strides in committing to solving climate change and global sustainability. Could you outline for us the core objectives and strategies the company has adopted to integrate this focus into the business strategy?
Absolutely, and hi, Veyen. The company's purpose is about safeguarding global sustainability through our metals. There's another part to our strategy, which is really our vision, which talks about creating superior value for all our stakeholders. Those two combined really encapsulate our commitment to sustainability and environmental upliftment. We're a unique mining company because of the combination of metals that make up our portfolio. They're green metals predominantly. So it's the PGMs which underpin the hydrogen economy somewhere in the future, but right now play a role in cleaning up gasoline engine exhaust emissions. We have a portfolio of battery metals, and that combined with PGMs gives us that unique green metals profile. There is no other mining company with that combined portfolio and the expansion into secondary and urban mining.
Absolutely, and it's a good question. The vision, as I said, is about creating superior value for all our stakeholders, and it's best explained through what we call our tree. The way we use that tree really defines the ethos of the company, but it also defines what we call a shared value model. The roots of the tree are our values, and even our values will indicate the type of company that we are. So we talk about ICARES. The I stands for innovation. The C stands for commitment. A for accountability. R for respect. E for enabling, and S for safe production. So those are the roots of our tree. The trunk of the tree is our people. The people give the company strength and direction. The canopy of the tree incorporates the environment and our stakeholders. A healthy tree will have a canopy consisting of the environment, communities, government, employees, shareholders, and so on. We have also gone about defining what is superior value for each one of those stakeholders. And if the tree is really healthy and it's nurtured and it's nourished, it'll produce fruit, and that fruit is the superior value. And that's the way we think about business.
You're historically a gold mining company, but how is your existing portfolio of metals and operations diversified to address the challenges the climate faces?
In about 2014, we started looking into expanding our business into PGMs. And in doing that, we had to understand the supply and demand side of PGMs. You start understanding global mobility and the way the global car pool will evolve. And we recognized early on that battery electric vehicles were going to make significant inroads. This was a long way ahead of, I suppose, what has become popular now in terms of renewable energy and so on. And we made a decision after we had completed building our PGM portfolio to enter the battery metal space. And that we did from 2021, and the pivot really redefined the company as a unique producer of green metals.
Sibanye-Stillwater operates in various regions with diverse social and environmental contexts. How do your strategies vary globally to accommodate the specific needs of the locations while still aligning on sustainability goals in each region?
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