Performance
Feature
Rio Tinto joins forces with Wal-Mart
Rio Tinto and the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, are combining their sustainability agendas to promote a new range of responsibly produced jewellery using gold, silver and diamonds from Rio Tinto.
Wal-Mart's Love, Earth® jewellery collection is produced with traceable gold, silver and diamonds manufactured to the highest environmental and social standards as part of an initiative to achieve 100 per cent traceability for all of the gold and silver jewellery sold at its hundreds of stores. Gold and silver is produced as a by-product at Rio Tinto's Bingham Canyon copper mine.
The initiative allows customers to trace their jewellery all the way back to the mine it came from by going online. Although Wal-Mart has other partners, the precious metals for the jewellery are initially being sourced from Rio Tinto's Kennecott Utah Copper Bingham Canyon mine, with diamonds from the Argyle mine in Western Australia. The final product is being sold at Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Club locations, as well as online.
"As the largest retailer of jewellery in the world, Wal-Mart is in a unique position to influence sustainable practices in the jewellery industry," said Pam Mortensen, vice-president and divisional merchandise manager for Wal-Mart. "With Love, Earth® jewellery we collaborate with partners like Rio Tinto who are at the forefront of sustainable business practices in their industry to bring an affordable and beautiful product to our customers."
Bruce Cox, managing director of Rio Tinto Diamonds, agreed that such partnerships had the potential to set new industry standards and influence mainstream business practices.
"Companies like Rio Tinto and Wal-Mart have an opportunity to change the way products are manufactured and used to reduce impacts on the environment and local communities."
Salt Lake Valley clean up milestone
An important 2008 milestone for Kennecott Utah Copper (KUC) was the successful completion of 17 years of working co-operatively with government agencies to accelerate the clean up of non mining land.
In 1991 KUC approached the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ) to propose an accelerated clean up of its land in the Salt Lake Valley, site of KUC's operations. Most of the areas requiring remediation were historic mining sites from the last century, many of which KUC inherited through its predecessor company, which purchased the land over many decades.
At the time, KUC's proposal to the EPA and UDEQ was a groundbreaking development. KUC agreed to continue and complete the clean up of lands affected by mining, rather than waiting for a Superfund listing. (Through the Superfund programme, the EPA can place contaminated land on the National Priorities List (NPL) for clean up. If those responsible fail to clean up the sites, the government pays for remediation, then goes after the responsible parties to recover its costs.)
KUC decided it could work with state and federal agencies to get the work done faster and more efficiently. The collaborative approach with the EPA and UDEQ meant that most of the money was spent on the actual clean up, as opposed to administrative or legal costs. The EPA agreed it would remove the sites, the South Zone and the North Zone, from the NPL upon KUC's completion of its clean up projects. Removal of the South Zone was achieved in September 2008.
"By taking a co-operative approach to the clean up, the work was performed more efficiently and cost effectively than if we had used the traditional Superfund process," said Andrew Harding, president and chief executive officer, KUC. "This is an example of how collaboration and co-operation can result in the best outcome for the community, business and government."
Much of the clean up work on the South Zone has focused on removing historic mining wastes and facilities, and protecting and restoring groundwater in the south west Salt Lake Valley. Commenting on the clean up, Kelly Payne, remediation manager, KUC, said: "Hundreds of acres of land have been remediated, where trees and grasses are growing now. Groundwater clean up systems are complete and KUC is providing clean drinking water to several communities through the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District."
KUC is now working with the EPA to put a similar consent decree in place for the North Zone, after which this area can also be removed from the Superfund list. KUC has already completed the soil clean up of the North Zone, and expects the removal of the North Zone from the NPL in the next few years.