Sustainability
Kingsrose is committed to conducting all operations in a sustainable manner.
We are motivated to set a new standard in responsible minerals exploration. We will achieve this through exemplary environmental stewardship and proactive stakeholder engagement. Our aim is to achieve net positive environmental and social impact in our project areas.
Despite being at the early stages of exploration, all our activities are planned and conducted in such a manner that no permanent negative impacts are expected. This approach follows the mitigation hierarchy of avoid, minimise, rehabilitate, and offset to meet our commitment to mitigating our impacts and protecting the environment. Kingsrose is also preparing rehabilitation plans for each project site and is committed to full rehabilitation of disturbed areas, should negative impacts occur.
Additionally, prior to conducting exploration activities, Kingsrose commits to share its plans with affected stakeholders to discuss how our operations can be conducted at a time and in a manner that is considerate of local values and land use.
Environment
We will plan and undertake our activities to limit our impacts to the environment, specifically to land and water. This will be achieved by:
- Undertaking baseline environmental studies, which will include identifying sensitive vegetation communities, protected flora species, and assessing sensitive uses of surface water and groundwater.
- Consulting with stakeholders to better understand uses of the land and water with the aim of mitigating potential impacts.
- Planning activities to avoid areas which are considered to be sensitive or sensitive land and water uses as identified by stakeholders.
- Where activities cannot be planned to avoid impacts, mitigation measures will be designed and implemented.
- Verification that mitigation measures are actively being implemented during completion of proposed activities.
- Where activities result in an unacceptable impact, rehabilitation of the impacted area to the satisfaction of stakeholders.
- Monitoring of the effectiveness of rehabilitation to meet agreed outcomes and timeframes.
Environmental Actions:
Meeting Reindeer Herders
Monitoring of soil at Porsanger
Drill map planning
Penikat Drill hole mapping
Owl Monitoring Survey
Community
Across all our exploration projects, Kingsrose strives to be a trusted partner and always works to ensure the best possible outcome for the communities in which we work.
We strive to achieve this through proactive, transparent, and positive dialogue. Understanding the concerns of all our stakeholders is a priority for Kingsrose. We undertake the following initiatives in the communities we work with:
- We aim for transparent and timely communication of our plans and progress is a priority for Kingsrose.
- We undertake regular meetings with local stakeholders, giving accurate information on the project and our operational plans to ensure people are aware and have the opportunity to ask questions.
- We will undertake pre-disturbance cultural heritage surveys and archaeological surveys to identify features of cultural importance.
- We have published websites in local languages to ensure local communities have up-to-date information on our progress.
- We are working with local communities to develop stakeholder-led social investment plans.
- We are working to include key stakeholders in the decision-making process, including the development of stakeholder-led governance frameworks such as working groups.
Community Engagement:
Discussing exploration plans in Lakselv, for the Porsanger project July 2022
Meeting with the Municipality of Narvik in January 2023
Meeting with the Mayor of Lakselv January 2023
Working Group in Lakselv Community March 2023
Health & Safety
Kingsrose is committed to upholding the best occupational health and safety standards with respect to our employees, contractors, and the local community.
As part of our commitment, Kingsrose has assigned a dedicated Health and Safety Committee made up of senior management including the Managing Director, a representative of the Board of Directors, a designated Health and Safety Officer and Head of Sustainability.
The Committee is tasked with overseeing the creation of a safe working environment, identifying, and mitigating potential health and safety risks, and ensuring adequate health and safety training is provided to all employees.
Ongoing health and safety programs and initiatives include:
- Task-specific risk identification, communication, and mitigation.
- Indication and verification of critical controls for all high-risk tasks.
- Safety training and coaching for Kingsrose staff and contractors.
- Auditing and verification of mitigation measures.
- Incident investigation, reporting and lessons learnt to prevent incident re-occurrence.
Reclamation and Compensation
We acknowledge that despite detailed planning and integrated mitigation measures, impacts from our activities may still occur.
Our exploration activities include rehabilitation plans, which are refined and implemented in collaboration with our internal team, specialist consultants, local contractors, and key stakeholders. Where our activities result in unacceptable impact, we will implement and monitor our rehabilitation plans to restore environmental values.
Reporting
At Kingsrose, we recognise the importance of developing and communicating our sustainability commitments. We are aligning our sustainability strategy with the Finnish Mining Association and Norsk Bergindustri and their Sustainable Mining and Exploration networks who have developed national sustainability standards that are based on the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) standards developed by the Mining Association of Canada.
We have incorporated the local TSM standards in our standard operating procedures to ensure consistent development of our operations at the highest level of sustainability standards and to meet the expectations of local stakeholders. Progress will be reported on annually to Finnish Mining Association and Norsk Bergindustri.
In addition, we are working to align our activities with the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA). IRMA has produced an IRMA-Ready Standard which defines best practices during mineral exploration and development, prior to the operational phase of a mine.
We are working with industry bodies, specialist consultants, and data management providers to progress towards our inaugural sustainability report, which will be delivered in 2024.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
To align our efforts with global priorities, we have integrated the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into both our operating strategy and our sustainability strategy.
Specific to the UN SDG, our focus areas are:
- SDG 4 Quality education
- SDG 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure
- SDG 13 Climate action
- SDG 15 Life on land
Progress against these goals will be reported in our inaugural sustainability report, which will be delivered in 2024.
