Gold Fields Limited on Thursday, published its Climate Change Report 2021 (CCR), which is part of its integrated annual reporting suite.

According to a communiqué from the Mining Company, the Climate Change Report 2021 is the Company’s fourth report aligned to the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

The CCR provides an extensive overview of the climate change-related risks we are facing, how we seek to mitigate these risks, the opportunities we are investigating and our climate change performance to date. It also provides an insight into our decarbonization strategy, which headlines one of the three pillars of Gold Fields’ new strategy, namely “Building on our leading commitment to environmental, social and governance issues”.

Gold Fields’ CEO, Chris Griffith, says the Company is already a leading company when it comes to the use of renewables and low carbon energy sources.

“But we still have a long way to go. We are acutely aware of the severity of climate-related risks, as well as societal expectations that companies should take a lead in reducing carbon emissions. Equally, the impacts of climate change are real and immediate to our operations and host communities,” Griffith says. As such, the Company has committed to a comprehensive decarbonization strategy.

The decarbonization targets, announced last year, are to reduce Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 30% by 2030. As we plan to raise our production profile over the same period, this translates to a 50% emission reduction in real terms. We are also committed to net-zero carbon emission by 2050. The CCR describes the steps we plan to take to meet the targets.

Renewable energy and energy efficiency projects at our mines will account for about two-thirds of these reductions by 2030 and have already delivered 18% emission reductions against business as usual between 2016 and 2021.