Our Environment
Environmental stewardship is a cornerstone of our sustainability strategy.
Our commitment to protect and preserve the environment is embedded in our Health, Safety and Environmental Policy. It provides a comprehensive framework to guide our actions. Through our work with our mining partners, the design of our processing facilities, day-to-day operations, and a comprehensive approach to environmental management, we work hard to deliver a strong and continually improving environmental performance.
Our environmental management systems (EMS) are either certified or aligned with the leading ISO14001 standard for exemplary environmental management. Our processing facilities at the Greenbush mine and our Aizu processing refinery have maintained ISO14001 certification since 1999.
Global Advanced Metals recognizes that all actions impact our surroundings and focus on climate change demands a comprehensive and holistic approach. We have embedded our focus on climate change directly in our Safety, Health and Environmental policies and procedures.
At present, our environmental priorities are focused in four key areas.
Air Quality – Across our sites, we identify, monitor and manage our priority air emissions (including sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particulates, metals emissions and ozone depleting substances) to help ensure compliance with permits and regulations in each jurisdiction where we operate.
Water Stewardship – Our priority is to be a responsible steward of the water we share through operational efficiencies and conservation. At a minimum, our goal is to ensure compliance with regulations and permits pertaining to water quality across our sites.
Waste Management – A high percentage of the tantalum ore we process is recovered from a waste stream from western Australia hard rock lithium mining. This embodies our efforts to intelligently and consciously use the available global tantalum resources.
Furthermore, the purchase and recovery of spent electronics and supply chain losses, 20% to 30% of the tantalum we use is recovered and diverted from waste streams.
Across our operations, we make with every effort to minimize the amount of waste generated, relying on our waste management standards and programs to safely manage the mineral wastes, including tailings, as well as hazardous and non-hazardous solid wastes produced. Robust recycling programs are in place at [most locations] and are playing a critical role in the reducing scrap metals.
Biodiversity & Land – Our land use and biodiversity efforts are primarily the responsibility of our mining partners at the Western Australia Greenbushes site.
We recognize and respect the land, plants, and species native to all of our locations. Efforts to support and preserve the land, plants, and species local to each of our sites are naturally included in our Safety, Health and Environment policies and procedures. And through our interactions and relationships with suppliers, vendors, and customers we demand a similar respect for areas local to each.