A reporting framework for environmental incidents has earned Aurelia Metals an Environmental Excellence award at the recent 2023 NSW Minerals Council HSEC Awards dinner.

Locally, Aurelia Metals, a base metals and gold mining company, run Peak Mine in the Cobar Basin as well as the Hera site which was transitioned to care and maintenance in April of this year.

In 2020 the company sought community consultation on their plans to extend its existing operations, this initially raised concerns about the construction of a vent rise close to Cobar. Negative feedback caused a rethink of the project with the vent rise eventually being located one kilometre away, appeasing local concerns.

But it's all good news for Aurelia this week with the award recognising their introduction of the Recordable Environmental Incident Frequency Rate (REIFR) reporting framework.

"The industry doesn't have a standardised approach to environmental reporting as yet," Jonathon Thompson, Aurelia's Group Manager of Environment and Community said. "(With REIFR) incidents level three and above are reported to the senior management team."

Mr Thompson said a level three incident is anything that causes material harm to the environment or repeat environmental incidents.

While the industry is already collecting this type of data there is currently no standardised approach for reporting it.

Speaking about the Award, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bryan Quinn explained the REIFR framework, highlighting its benefits for mining companies.

“As entrusted custodians of the local environments where we operate, we take the protection and management of the environment very seriously," Mr Quinn said. “Our REIFR is calculated by tracking environmental incidents level three and above (as outlined in our ‘Incident and Hazard Management Procedure’) per million hours worked. This mirrors our Total Recordable Incident Frequency Rate (TRIFR) reporting.

“Incorporating REIFR into our reporting framework coincided with the overarching cultural shift that came with the inception and roll out of our Safe Metals strategy. And given we view safety and environmental performance as intrinsically linked, it comes as no surprise we’ve seen year-on-year improvements in our environmental performance."

Mr Quinn said the REIFR reporting framework is a unique solution to an absence in policy for mining companies to report their environmental performance.

"The advantages of the framework for other mining companies transcend transparency obligations and point to improved safety and environmental performance and strengthening employee accountability," he said.