The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) said beginning this year, all its 19 member-companies with operating mines will fully implement the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) initiative.
The group said the TSM initiative will further improve mining companies’ efforts to operate in a sustainable manner as they will now submit their self-assessment reports on eight TSM Protocols for their 2023 performance.
TSM protocols that will be assessed include safety and health; community and indigenous peoples outreach and social development; crisis management and communications; tailings management; water management; biodiversity conservation management; and climate change.
The companies will also conduct internal audits and should be able to support their self-ratings with proofs and evidences.
Ten of the 19 mines will be subjected to independent external verification by highly qualified Verification Service Providers (VSP) to validate the reports while the other nine will be VSP-validated next year.
The results of all self-assessment and externally verified reports will then be made publicly available.
COMP’s member companies operating the 19 mines include Rio Tuba Nickel; OceanaGold Didipio; Philex Padcal; Benguet Corp.; Cagdianao Mining Corp.; Carmen Copper Corp.; Carrascal Nickel Corp.; CTP Construction and Mining Corp.; Dinapigue Mining Corp.; Eramen Minerals Inc.; FCF Minerals Inc.; Filminera Resources Corp.; Hinatuan Mining Corp.; Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co.; LNL Archipelago Minerals Inc.; Platinum Group Metals Corp.; and Taganito Mining Corp.
“After we adopted TSM in December 2017, we embarked on a six-year preparation period that saw our members actively participate in the Filipinization of the TSM Protocols,” said Michael Toledo, COMP chairman, in a statement.
TSM is a set of tools and indicators established by the Mining Association of Canada in 2004 to drive performance and ensure that key mining risks are managed responsibly and best practices are used at members’ facilities.
The Philippines, through COMP, remains the only country in Asia to subscribe to TSM.
Other TSM-implementing jurisdictions are Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Colombia, Finland, Guatemala, Mexico, Norway, Panama, Spain and Canada. -Jed Macapagal
