RAISING THE BAR – YET AGAIN
Now, in addition to the current ESG Benchmark, the new Premium Benchmark will cover five international regions – North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, allowing subscribers to compare any mine’s ESG performance against other geographically relevant data.
Amongst other intuitive new tools, customisable features will enable users to compare data from mines of different countries, memberships (including World Gold Council or SMO Member mines) and sizes, types or life stages, allowing easier performance analysis between peers.
It will also allow historical data to be made available, beginning from 2021, so users can track the performance of mines or groups of mines across the years – providing a clear, auditable and downloadable trail for all ESG data.
Additionally, a revised ‘traffic light’ scoring system will reveal where performance benchmarks are met or exceeded, with green indicating that a company has met or exceeded the expected standard, amber showing a deviance of with 5% of the standard, and red demonstrating a performance lag of more than 5% below the expected standard.
“The aim of this new Benchmark is to provide a tool that allows unprecedented levels of detail and transparency around ESG data from gold mining. Now, for the first time, you can look at individual mines, or groups of mines, and see how they compare across a range of important criteria, including carbon emissions, female employment levels and social spending,” says Charlie Betts, Managing Director of The Betts Group and co-founder of SMO Gold.
“This Benchmark represents a ‘best in class’ of available data, which we hope will be a driver for further beneficial change within the industry, generate further interest in Single Mine Origin gold and more responsible sourcing in general.”
