“Leading adopter” of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) mining standard, Anglo American Platinum says an initial IRMA 50 rating for its major Mogalakwena mine in South Africa means all four of its operations have been fully assessed under the “comprehensive mining standard”.
Anglo American Platinum, the world’s largest primary producer of platinum group metals (PGMs), said Mogalakwena’s rating further underlined its commitment to transparency in striving for responsible PGMs production. The mine, near Mokopane in Limpopo Province, produced 953,000 3E (platinum-palladium-rhodium) ounces at US$907/oz AISC in 2024.
Anglo American Platinum’s Unki mine in Zimbabwe was the first mine in the world to publicly commit to be independently audited against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining, achieving IRMA 75 in 2021. That rating was reconfirmed in 2024 at IRMA 75 following surveillance auditing. The company’s Mototolo and Amandelbult mines were audited in 2024, achieving IRMA 75 and IRMA 50, respectively.
“With this latest IRMA accreditation for Mogalakwena we have achieved our target of having all our mines assured by 2025,” said Anglo American Platinum CEO Craig Miller.
“We are immensely proud of the work the teams are doing across all of our operations to support responsible mining, enabling us to demonstrate an ethical value chain for our metals and we look forward to continuing to lead the way in the PGMs sector globally.”
IRMA’s scoring system recognises four levels of performance, with IRMA 50, 75 and 100 signifying that a mine meets a core set of requirements and at least 50%, 75% or 100% of the requirements spelt out in IRMA’s Standard for Responsible Mining are being sustainably met. IRMA Transparency acknowledges a mine is third party-assessed and publicly shares its scores. The Standard for Responsible Mining was developed over a decade through an extensive public consultation process involving mining companies, downstream users of mined products, NGOs, labour unions and communities.
“Through detailed IRMA audit reports mining companies, communities and companies that purchase mined materials can gain the information they need to decide what’s going well and what may require more attention at specific mines,” IRMA executive director Aimee Boulanger said.
“Mogalakwena’s report demonstrates that the mine can point to transparent, independent evaluations of their environmental and social performance along with the other three Anglo American Platinum mines in South Africa and Zimbabwe.”
