Precious and battery metals group Sibanye-Stillwater has ranked fourth out of 327 JSE-listed companies and 27 State-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the third yearly National Biodiversity and Business Network (NBBN) of South Africa Biodiversity Disclosure Project.

Sibanye’s 2020 score improved by 15% year-on-year over 2019, placing it as the second-best company in the basic materials sector, compared with third in 2019.

The Biodiversity Disclosure Project report presents the results of the third yearly corporate biodiversity performance assessment of the NBBN of South Africa, managed by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT).

While only 79 out of 354 JSE-listed companies and SOEs recognise biodiversity as a material issue, Sibanye on December 8 said it recognises the core importance of biodiversity in ensuring the miner prospers as a climate change resilient business by both reducing its climate impact and ensuring the health of ecosystems to promote sustainable mining and mineral processing, and post-mining land uses to support communities.

Considering that defining nature-positive actions and outcomes will take long-term commitment and require science-based assessments, Sibanye-Stillwater has partnered with the EWT to achieve this by completing the first Biological Diversity Protocol assessment for all its operations in 2021.

The assessment aims to establish baseline hectare equivalents to track, manage and disclose biodiversity-related metrics.

The outcomes of the 2021 Biological Diversity Protocol assessments will be disclosed in Sibanye’s 2021 integrated yearly report, which will be published in April.

“The acknowledgement of our biodiversity performance is testament to our commitment to define globally relevant and industry-leading best practices. Our commitment to embedding the mitigation hierarchy in all areas of the business ultimately aims at achieving net gain for our existing operations and no net loss in biodiversity for our new operations,” says CEO Neal Froneman.

He adds that Sibanye is committed to expanding its role in providing a cleaner and sustainable environment and improving lives.

“We recognise the need to transition to a climate change resilient business, one that not only minimises our greenhouse-gas emissions and contribution to global warming, but also executes on the protection and restoration of ecosystems to support resilience against the impacts of climate change, both for our business and for surrounding communities.”