Occupational health
Focused on identifying health risks in advance and managing them, we worked to keep our people healthy and avoid occupational illnesses. Preventive care and promoting healthy lifestyles can help avoid certain chronic illnesses and improve general wellness and physical ability for work. Although we focus on prevention, emergency response is a core skill for all our health teams.

KEY ACTIVITIES:

• Identifying and monitoring the level of exposure to physical and chemical risks to our people’s health: noise, dust, vibration, contamination from heavy metals, extreme temperatures.
• Establishing procedures, protective equipment, training and operating controls.
• Evaluating and improving the ergonomics of our equipment to prevent muscular-skeletal disorders.
• Guaranteeing a health checkup for new hires, including both physical and psycho-social assessments.
• Routine checkups to monitor occupational illnesses and give advice on preventive care.
• Administering new rehabilitation facilities to accelerate recovery from injury.
• Starting up our Healthy Lifestyles Program to encourage good eating habits and prevent and control the risks relating to obesity.
• Biological monitoring to prevent sanitary risks.
• Organizing workshops on behavioral change, facilitated by psychologists, to reduce accident risk.

Seguridad - Me Cuido, nos Cuidamos
We want to instill in our people a culture of care—sustained by the shared values of this organization—propelled by our leaders and focused on high–potential incidents.

KEY ACTIVITIES:

• Strengthen safety goals by tracking proactive performance indicators, in order to act in advance of any eventuality.
• Make all operations “owners” of their safety risks so that, as a fundamental part of their daily activities, they render accounts according to their performance and management results.
• Introduce the Watch out for Risk program, to develop risk competencies by educating leaders, supervisors and the work force, with a system of teamwork made up of unit managers, general operating superintendents and area superintendents, all of whom will carry out this exercise according to a previously established program. This program encourages coaching and immediate feedback, and leads to a comprehensive process of review and continuous improvement.
• Continuing the program of addressing high-potential incidents, a strategy focused on managing critical risks and controls, processes for verifying controls, and preventive reporting of possible high-potential incidents.

Environment
We are committed to mining practices that are compatible with the environment. We have a strategy for reducing the impact of our activities and for openly and honestly communicating our performance.

KEY ACTIVITIES:

Responsible water use

• Closed circuits: Recirculation allows us to re-use water in plant circuits and tailings dams, and between the leaching pads and Merrill-Crowe plants.
• Treatment and reuse of municipal waste water: Reduces consumption of fresh water through treatment of municipal waste water for its reuse in processing minerals.
• High-performance compact thickeners: Reduces water consumption and energy consumption and improves the storage capacity of tailings dams.

Reducing the carbon footprint

• Wind energy: Reduces the carbon footprint of the energy needed to operate our plants, ventilation systems, offices, mining camps, etc.
• Conversion of diesel trucks to hybrid systems with natural gas: Reduces operating costs and de-carbonizes the truck fleet for operations at the Centauro cut (Herradura).
• On-demand ventilation systems: Reduce electricity consumption by optimizing mine ventilation based on air temperature and quality metrics.

Biodiversity

• Sonoran pronghorn: (Berrendo sonorense): Support for the Sonoran government in conservation and monitoring of Sonoran pronghorn populations in ejidos adjacent to the Herradura mine.
• Sustainable forest: Conservation of 1,000 hectares of woodlands at the La Ciénega mine. Reforestation and erosion prevention actions to protect ecosystems and conserve soil, facilitating aquifer recharge.

Safe management of mining waste

• Reuse of tailings for mine fill: At San Julián, 40% of the tailings are reused as mine fill, reducing the amount of tailings sent to the dam.
• Tailings dams: We have a team that specializes in the design, operation and safe closure of these key infrastructures. The governance structure is based on management committees for accountability, in addition to an independent tailings dam review panel that advises on safety and governance.
• Cyanide handling: Gold operations at Fresnillo plc, Herradura and Noche Buena have International Cyanide Management Code certification.

Management systems:
Our operations and explorations conform to an ISO 14001 management system, complemented by the cyanide management code in operations focused on gold production. The current certification status of our facilities is as follows:

Transparency and accountability

1. We report our environmental performance to Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) climate change and water programs.
2. Additionally, we report our performance in the GHG Mexico program. Fresnillo plc has earned GHG-2 recognition for reporting verified emissions according to the voluntary GHG Mexico program.

Clean technologies play an important role in optimum environmental performance and in strengthening social acceptance of the mining industry. We support the Colorado Cleantech Challenge, an expo of the latest innovations that brings mining companies together with clean technology solution providers. Our CEO, Octavio Alvídrez, is a member of the Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources at the University of Arizona, a world-class research institute that develops technology for addressing the environmental challenges of the mining industry. We are also members of the World Environment Centre (WEC), a think-tank that promotes sustainable development through the dissemination of best practices among its members and through capacity-building.

Community relations
Social acceptance is our greatest intangible asset. We form mutually beneficial relationships with the communities surrounding our operations, projects and explorations. Our engagement strategy covers the entire life cycle of the mine, from exploration to closure. Our social investment programs focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

COVID-19 has raised expectations regarding companies’ contributions to society. In response we adapted our programs and initiatives to respond to the challenges our communities are facing.

Education

For health reasons, schools had to close during the pandemic, so we migrated our programs to digital platforms.

• The Picando Letras program, developed with the support of IBBY México, opened a YouTube channel to assist families with reading activities, oral and written expression, and cultural activities. It also continued to develop “reading mediators” by training teachers and parents with short videos and advice through instant messaging apps.(https://www.youtube.com/c/picandoletras).
• Innovec provided continued support for our STEM education activities. Using short videos and advice through instant messaging apps, parents and teachers were trained on how to give the course “COVID-19! How do I protect myself and others?” developed by the Smithsonian Education Center. This course teaches children about the basics of the coronavirus, and how to care for themselves and protect their families. The success of this course motivated us to produce this content in videos created especially for kids. We invite you to join the community of Plant Super-Researchers (https://cosip.tv/).
• Peñoles-FIRST Robotics: The Peñoles FIRST robotic teams from Fresnillo (Jeunes d’argent) and Caborca (Cabots) organized to produce protective face shields for regional hospitals and groups in the communities.
• Fresnillo – La Salle scholarships: Recipients continued their studies remotely at La Salle Laguna.
• Book donation in partnership with Larousse: With the campaigns “Imagine, create and transform” and “Reading is believing, let’s grow together,” in January 2021 we distributed more than 41,000 books in our communities, donated by Larousse.
• Flute without border: We streamed a live Christmas concert by flautist Elena Durán on YouTube for our people and communities.
• Educational internet: We launched a pilot project to assess educational internet technology for communities with limited access to telecommunications. The results will be useful in designing projects for social investment in educational internet.

Health

• We shared measures and recommendations with our communities on how to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
• We made strategic donations to hospitals and healthcare professionals that serve our communities, especially donations of ventilators and personal protection equipment.
• In communities neighboring our operations, we organized campaigns to distribute 550,000 N95, surgical and handmade facemasks, and also instructed people about their correct use.
• We organized rapid testing campaigns in communities to promptly detect contagion.
• We cooperated with authorities in the municipalities of Fresnillo and Zacatecas by lending a plot of land where medical service could be expanded during the pandemic.
• We donated basic food supplies to the most vulnerable members of our communities.
• In cooperation with the authorities, we helped sanitize public spaces in our communities.

Water

• Rainwater collectors: We conducted a diagnosis of 300 rainwater capture systems in San Julián, providing recommendations to users and planning future interventions.
• We brought water tank trucks to communities in Sonora who were dealing with a pump failure emergency at their underground wells. This provided much-needed water for hand-washing, which is crucial to reduce contagion.

Capabilities
improvement

• Enterprising together: The Entrepreneurs program migrated to remote learning mode with the support of ProEmpleo Mexico City, serving participants from all our operations and projects like Rodeo.
• Mining Clusters: Program designed to develop and strengthen supply chains and regional services, increasing economic benefit in the states of Zacatecas, Chihuahua and Sonora. Clusters are also an effective way of relating to key publics, like state governments.

Ethical culture and diversity

Ethics
We aspire to a well-established ethical culture that is embodied in our behavior and actions. Operating according to ethical standards is key to mitigating the risks of corruption, workplace accidents, conflicts with communities and environmental accidents.

Our program, Step Forward for Ethics aims to implant the winning behaviors of transformational leadership, behaving ethically, building trust, and leveraging diversity. In 2020, we reinforced the training of non-unionized personnel with the interactive course Step Forward for Ethics designed by the University of Arizona. We also applied the Ethisphere ethical culture survey.

Diversity
We implemented a strategy to boost women’s participation in Fresnillo plc: the strategy was designed, targets set, and we joined the Aequales network. We participated in the PAR ranking organized by Aequales and ITAM in Mexico, which gave us a preliminary assessment of areas of opportunity for bringing in more women.

Based on the lessons of the University of Arizona Diversity Survey, we identified unconscious bias as one of the chief barriers to leveraging diversity. Also, inspired by international diversity and ethnic inclusion movements, we trained 300 leaders through a course on “Diversity, equity and inclusion,” given by professors from the University of Arizona.

Awards
Fresnillo plc is a member of the FTSE4Good Index. In Mexico, we have received the Ethics and Values Award from Concamin and the Socially Responsible Company Award from Cemefi. Operations at El Saucito and Herradura received the Environmental Excellence Award from Profepa. Fresnillo plc currently holds the distinction of being one of Ethisphere’s Most Ethical Companies, and ranks second in the Corporate Integrity 500 Index, organized by Transparencia Mexicana, Mexicanos Unidos contra la Corrupción, and Expansión magazine.