NEAL FRONEMAN: Earning the trust of our neighbours is crucial for miners
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Developing and maintaining trust, and getting the support of stakeholders, are fundamental bases for companies to be successful and sustainable. And while this is critical in any business anywhere in the world, it is even more important in the mining industry in SA given our demographic profile and social challenges. For mining companies, a primary focus needs to be on the stakeholders at and around our operations; in essence, our neighbours.
It’s a homily that trust is earned, but that doesn’t make it less true. Only through a process of constructive and transparent engagement can we achieve mutually acceptable and constructive ends: where listening is more important than telling; where time is given and taken to collaboratively work through problems and solutions; where engagement is inclusive and broad-based rather than exclusive; and where we approach any challenge with humility and vulnerability because we don’t have all the answers, and in fact may never have them.
Yet it is difficult to move to the future because so few beneficiaries of SA’s past have been willing to acknowledge the realities of that history. Before we successfully find a way of moving forward we need to talk about our past, the history that remains a barrier because it divides our society and prevents engagements about what is needed to take us forward.
We need to acknowledge past injustice to enable us then to have worthwhile engagements about the socioeconomic growth and development that will address the poverty, unemployment and inequality that are features of our society, in many respects because of that past and in some respects because of our present, or our more recent history.
For our company, Sibanye-Stillwater, which last year acquired the assets of Lonmin, much of the commemoration that has taken place this week has been about dealing with the things that were unacceptable in the past and must never happen again.
I was fortunate in 2016 to be part of the process of developing the Zambezi Protocol, in a meeting convened by the Brenthurst Foundation under the auspices of former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. The Zambezi Protocol sets out a road map to realise optimal value from Africa’s vast mineral wealth based on a foundation of trust, underpinned by constructive partnerships that improve competitiveness, generate value and secure a sustainable future.
The Zambezi Protocol challenges industry’s stakeholders to develop a vision of what a sustainable, successful industry should ...
It’s a homily that trust is earned, but that doesn’t make it less true. Only through a process of constructive and transparent engagement can we achieve mutually acceptable and constructive ends: where listening is more important than telling; where time is given and taken to collaboratively work through problems and solutions; where engagement is inclusive and broad-based rather than exclusive; and where we approach any challenge with humility and vulnerability because we don’t have all the answers, and in fact may never have them.
Yet it is difficult to move to the future because so few beneficiaries of SA’s past have been willing to acknowledge the realities of that history. Before we successfully find a way of moving forward we need to talk about our past, the history that remains a barrier because it divides our society and prevents engagements about what is needed to take us forward.
We need to acknowledge past injustice to enable us then to have worthwhile engagements about the socioeconomic growth and development that will address the poverty, unemployment and inequality that are features of our society, in many respects because of that past and in some respects because of our present, or our more recent history.
For our company, Sibanye-Stillwater, which last year acquired the assets of Lonmin, much of the commemoration that has taken place this week has been about dealing with the things that were unacceptable in the past and must never happen again.
I was fortunate in 2016 to be part of the process of developing the Zambezi Protocol, in a meeting convened by the Brenthurst Foundation under the auspices of former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. The Zambezi Protocol sets out a road map to realise optimal value from Africa’s vast mineral wealth based on a foundation of trust, underpinned by constructive partnerships that improve competitiveness, generate value and secure a sustainable future.
The Zambezi Protocol challenges industry’s stakeholders to develop a vision of what a sustainable, successful industry should ...
