IGO has decreased its total recordable injury frequency following a fatality at its Nova nickel-copper-cobalt mine in Western Australia last year.
The company’s total reportable injury frequency rate dove below 4 in March and remained below 5 by the end of the 2020 financial year.
Its serious potential incident frequency also hit lows of just above 1 in June, improving from a spike to 5 in December last year.
This safety focus followed the tragic accident involving one of IGO’s contract employees in 2019, who succumbed to his injuries while loading a truck at the Nova mine.
IGO managing director and chief executive Peter Bradford, during his address at the company’s annual general meeting, commended the team’s efforts in improving safety amid a challenging period.
“We have made significant progress to better safeguard our people and improve our safety outcomes,” he said.
“We have done this by continuously improving our working places, our systems and process and our safety culture behaviours.
“Notwithstanding this, people continue to be hurt in the business. Our focus remains on making IGO a safer place to work.”
IGO also prioritised the mental wellbeing of its workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure business continuity and protection of its host communities.
Its commitment to clean mining, including the Nova solar farm commissioning, has also put its Nova nickel mine as one of the lowest carbon intensity nickel operations in the world.
“Our sustainability reports over the past few years have been rated as ‘leading’ disclosure by the Australian Council for Superannuation Investors and that we were admitted to the Dow Jones sustainability index in late 2019 at the 78th percentile,” Bradford said.
“I am pleased that IGO continues to be included in the latest index announced this week.”