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NEWS-LEADING DEVELOPMENTS MAY 2018 • E&MJ; 5 www.e-mj.com Ivan Glasenberg resigned his position as a director of Rusal. Glencore holds a 9% stake in Rusal, which is valued at about $1 billion. The company said it was com- mitted to complying with the sanctions. Rusal's aluminum, alumina and baux- ite production accounts for approximately 7%, 7% and 4% of the global production in 2017, respectively. The company's inability to conduct business is creating great uncertainty in the marketplace. A Rusal spokesperson said Deripaska called the sanctions against him baseless, ridic- ulous and absurd. Boliden Reports Higher Grades at Aitik and Tara Boliden's first quarter 2018 was charac- terized by high grades and few accidents. "Production was high despite some dis- turbances," Boliden President and CEO Lennart Evrell. Together with favorable metal prices, it provided another quarter of operating profit of close to SEK 3 bil- lion ($337 million). After extensive work for increased safety, the accident rate has decreased and was the lowest ever in the quarter. The new Aitik crusher is under- way, which affected the ore volume but was compensated by high grades. Also, The Responsible Mining Index 2018 showed that mining com- panies are collectively demonstrating responsible mining across many issues and strong cases of leading practice are evident, providing valuable models for other companies. More wide- spread adoption of existing practices could see the mining in- dustry go some way to meeting society's expectations. The vast majority of the assessed mining companies show responsible policies or practices on several economic, environmental, social and governance (EESG) issues. Looking at the six different areas that the index tracks no single mining company led in more than two categories. The Responsible Mining Index 2018 aims to encourage con- tinuous improvement in responsible mining and support leading practice and learning. The index, which is independent of the industry, covers 30 large-scale mining companies that together represent a quarter of the global production of mined commodi- ties and operate more than 700 mines in more than 40 countries. It is the first of a multiyear initiative by the Responsible Mining Foundation. The index assesses and compares compa- ny policies and practices across six different EESG areas: eco- nomic development, business conduct, lifecycle management, community wellbeing, working conditions and environmental re- sponsibility. As an evidence-based assessment, the index mea- sures the extent to which companies can demonstrate, rather than simply claim, that they have established responsible poli- cies and practices. To support transparency and open data prin- ciples, the RMI results, and the information sources used in the assessment, are provided free as a public good. The index results show that responsible mining is a realistic goal — it can be done. If a single company were to achieve the highest score recorded for each indicator, it would reach more than 70% of the maximum achievable score. The results also reveal a wide range of companies demonstrating respon- sible practice on particular issues. Indeed, some 19 of the 30 companies rank among the 10 strongest performers for at least one thematic area of the Index. And leading practices are found even on issues for which performances are generally weak,, such as addressing the needs of vulnerable groups in mining-affect- ed communities. These results all point to the strong potential for continuous improvement based on existing practices already demonstrated by a number of different companies. On the other hand, the results show some marked limita- tions in current practice. Companies tend to put in place policy commitments without always backing these up with systemat- ic, effective company-wide action. This is seen even for topics where commitments are common and commonly expected, such as human rights and occupational health and safety. Further, the scale and persistence of severe adverse impacts is at odds with the widespread existence of such commitments. For example, worker fatalities and violations of human rights are among the most frequent adverse impacts found in the RMI analysis. In the face of such evidence, strong company commit- ments are sometimes not matched by company actions, which clearly need to be more effective. Companies typically show a lack of systematic attention to monitoring their performance on EESG issues and reporting their performance to other stakeholders, including mining-af- fected communities. This lack of knowing and showing their own performance is most evident at the mine-site level. The vast majority of the 127 sites assessed provide little or no data on key issues of direct interest to local communities, workers and other stakeholders. This includes information on how a site is managing local employment, local procurement, grievance, wa- ter use and biodiversity impacts. Without open sharing of such data, it is very difficult for companies to build trust with local communities. Nonetheless a few companies and a few sites are showing the way by putting into practice open data principles to ensure the information reported is easily accessed, understood and used by local communities. More information can be found at https://responsiblemining- index.org/en. Responsible Mining Index 2018 Highlights Leading Practices The Responsible Mining Index evaluates the performance of major mining companies in six areas including Economic Development (above).