Aurelia Metals was announced among the winners of the NSW Minerals Council’s Health, Safety, Environment and Community Awards in the Hunter on Monday.
The awards recognise the most outstanding innovations and contributions to the mining industry across a range of categories.
The Environmental Excellence Award was presented to Aurelia for the company’s landmark Recordable Environmental Incident Frequency Rate (REIFR) measure.
Aurelia’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Quinn said Aurelia takes the protection and management of the environment very seriously.
“REIFR is calculated by tracking environmental incidents level three and above (as outlined in our ‘Incident and Hazard Management Procedure’) per million hours worked.
“This mirrors our Total Recordable Incident Frequency Rate (TRIFR) reporting.
“Incorporating REIFR into our reporting framework coincided with the overarching cultural shift that came with the inception and roll out of our Safe Metals strategy.
“And given we view safety and environmental performance as intrinsically linked, it comes as no surprise we’ve seen year-on-year improvements in our environmental performance. Our REIFR reporting framework is a unique solution to an absence in policy for mining companies to report their environmental performance. There are advantages of the framework for other mining companies. These advantages transcend transparency obligations and point to improved safety and environmental performance and strengthening employee accountability,” Mr Quinn said.