Environment, Health, Safety and Social Policy

The company is committed to sustainable development principles, by:

  • ensuring a safe and healthy workplace for employees, contractors and visitors, preventing injuries and ill health;
  • protecting the surrounding natural environment and archeological heritage, while, not only mitigating potential adverse effect of activities on air, land and water quality as well as biodiversity, but also ensuring a beneficial impact;
  • managing social impact, building constructive relationship and contributing to the social development of surrounding communities.

Therefore, the company is committed to implement, maintain and improve an integrated Environmental, Health, Safety and Social (hereafter EHSS) management system by involving employees, through continuous awareness and strengthening their EHSS related competencies.
The Executive management of "Teghout" CJSC is committed to comply with applicable Armenian legal and regulatory EHSS related requirements to which the company subscribed and conform to ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and IFC international standards and guidelines.
The company has defined the following objectives for effective implementation of the integrated EHSS management system:

Occupational Health & Safety:

  • Implement a health & safety management system;
  • Improve emergency preparedness and response;
  • Improve incidents reporting;
  • Increase awareness on OHS.

Environment:

  • Implement an environmental management system;
  • Improve the management of waste;
  • Reduce energy consumption․

Social:

  • Implement a Corporate Social Responsibility framework;
  • Improve stakeholders’ engagement within the CSR framework through constructive dialogue with surrounding communities.

This policy along with above mentioned objectives and targets will be reviewed regularly during management reviews and in case of changes affecting the EHSS management system to ensure relevance with corporate activities.

Objectives and Targets of the Company in EHSS
As part of developing and implementing IMS, within the framework of EHSS policy the Company had defined EHSS objectives and targets. Those were designed in accordance with requirements of ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 standards, taking into account the experience of other leading mining companies. Objectives were defined to the extent possible in a way that the achievement of the Company will be measurable and quantifiable. In defining the objectives and targets the company followed also the requirements of Armenian legislation. WSP was involved in developing objectives and targets.

The objectives and targets described in the following table are categorized per different areas:

  • Frequency of accidents/incidents
  • Stakeholder engagement and communication
  • Clean and safe output units
  • Reduction of waste per output unit
  • Improvement of socio-economic situation in nearby communities, volume if community investments
  • Safety
  • Waste and tailings management (options for waste reduction, tailings reuse, reclamation and safe exploitation and engineering)
  • Environmental and biodiversity protection (planting program: survival rate, growth, etc.)
  • Management of dust and its negative impacts
  • Water: compliance with discharge limits

Objectives and targets

Main areas

Objectives

Targets

Environment, safety and health

1. Ensure skills, knowledge and capacity of the Company staff to comply with EHS requirements

1. Initiate trainings needs analysis and prepare trainings program
2. Conduct training of 100% of employees engaged in high-risk areas (fire safety, traffic safety, etc.)
3. Conduct induction for 100% of visitors

Safety

1. Zero damage to Company and contractor staff, visitors and communities

1. Zero fatal accidents
2. Implement accident and incident reporting system covering all accidents and incidents (including near misses)
3. Count accident/incident frequency
4. Develop reporting indicators and record accident/incident numbers per unit of output

Health

1. Protect employee health

1. Implement occupational health program for Company employees
2. Implement detailed assessment of occupational noise and effective supervision program prior to operational stage of the project
3. Implement supervision activities as necessary

Social

1. Ensure clean water access

1. Implement new community program in 2014, which would be targeted towards ensuring stable access to clean drinking water sources for local communities.

2. Ensure capacity increase in local labor

1. Maintain the share of employees from Teghout and other nearby villages (local labor).
2. Organizing informative site tours for the graduates and students of higher grades of local community schools, as well as for the teachers, providing introductory information to assist professional orientation for future employment at the Company
3. Organizing production internships

3. Stakeholder engagement, including representatives of local communities




4. Support nearby communities in meeting their social and health needs

1. Continue activities envisaged in stakeholder engagement plan
2. Ensure sustainability of the grievance mechanism


1. Complete health and social baseline assess­ment
2. Develop main impact indicators and implement monitoring requirements
3. Progress with social and health impact assessment
4. Development of KPIs
5. Development and implementation of monitoring scheme

Environmental

1. Ensure implementation of effective waste and tailings management approach

1. Review waste minimization and evaluation options to decrease to volume of waste accumulation and increase the volume of waste recycling and reuse
2. Develop and implement waste management program
3. Develop and implement acid generation mitigation strategy

2. Protect water environment and prevent unplanned discharge to soil

1. Maintain full compliance with water discharge limits and monitoring plan throughout 2015
2. Zero unplanned dis­charge and environmental incidents in 2015
3. Installation of water meters
4. Use of wastewater cleaning stations
5. Hazardous materials’ sto­rage organized in accor­dance with relevant guidelines
6. Installation of discharge prevention equipment and implementation of relevant procedures

3. Protect and improve local ecosystems and cultural heritage

1. Ensure required survival rate under the planting program
2. Continue environmental studies in 2015 and prepare environmental protection and compensation plan
3. Implement actions envisaged under Chance Find Procedure

4. Ensure absence of substantial negative impact on air

1. Ensure that dust density in 2015 is within the regulatory limits
2. Dust monitoring and response measures in case of high values