Assurance

We made a formal commitment statement in our 2019 Sustainability Report to comply with the ICMM Mining Principles and WGC’s Responsible Gold Mining Principles, and to progressively improve in our sustainable development performance. In 2020, we embarked on a project to assess corporate level compliance by reviewing our Group policies, procedures, standards and practices against the ICMM Mining Principles and WGC’s Responsible Gold Mining Principles. A site-based self-assessment program will be implemented across the group during 2021. Internal audits will provide internal assurance on this process, and the independent verification of the 2021 performance will be undertaken by an external assurance provider. The Sustainability Report tracks the local procurement spend as a percentage of total spend per country for the past five years. These figures and reports are audited by internal and external audit.

We have engaged EY to undertake an assurance engagement for selected sustainability KPIs and related disclosures in this report. This was done with reference to ICMM requirements contained in the ICMM Sustainable Development Framework Assurance Procedure (ICMM Requirements) and the GRI Standards.

Certain of the Employee Safety KPIs for this reporting period ended 31 December 2020 were changed to enable reporting of these KPIs on a disaggregated basis, to show the 2020 performance information for Continuing Operations and Discontinued Operations.

The external assurance of these disclosures is for the Discontinued South Africa and Mali operations (Date of discontinuation 30 September 2020 for South Africa and 30 December 2020 respectively). See the Assurance Report Appendix and the data tables.

The Discontinued Operations performance information comprises the information for the discontinued South Africa and Mali operations. Reference to About this report, where dates of disposals are captured.

Group Internal Audit provided assurance for the 2020 sustainability reporting in terms of the Group Internal Audit Charter as approved by the Company’s Audit and Risk Committee. The audits were performed in accordance with the Institute of Internal Auditors’ Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Audit.

Internal assurance includes a programme of combined assurance assessments, comprising site visits and reviews, undertaken during the course of the year. These assessments determine the validity, accuracy and completeness of the sustainability information and data.