MANILA: The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) said its 19 member-companies will fully implement the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) initiative, a global environmental, social, and corporate governance performance measurement standard.
In a statement over the weekend, COMP said TSM is a set of tools and indicators to ensure that key mining risks are managed responsibly and best practices are used at members’ mining facilities.
At present, the Philippines through COMP is the only country in Asia to subscribe to TSM.
COMP said member-companies will submit their self-assessment reports on eight TSM protocols for their 2023 performance.
These TSM protocols include safety and health; community and Indigenous Peoples outreach and social development; crisis management and communications; tailings management; water management; biodiversity conservation management; and climate change.
The report will be submitted via an online app called Mine Site Sustainability Audit (MSSA).
The mines will conduc
t internal audits and should be able to support their self-ratings with proofs and evidence.
COMP said 10 of the 19 mines will be subjected to independent external verification by highly qualified Verification Service Providers (VSPs) to validate the reports while the other nine will be validated next year.
The results of all self-assessment and externally verified reports will be made public.
‘After we adopted TSM in December 2017, we embarked on a six-year preparation period that saw our members actively participate in the Filipinization of the TSM Protocols,’ COMP chairperson Michael Toledo said.
‘That period also saw the formation of our multi-sector Community of Interest Advisory Panel, the training and accreditation of our VSPs, the development and cascading of the MSSA, a self-assessment dry run, and the mock external verification of three volunteer mines: Rio Tuba Nickel, OceanaGold Didipio, and Philex Padcal,’ he added.
Other COMP member-firms with operating mines include Benguet Corp., Cag
dianao Mining Corp., Carmen Copper Corp., Carrascal Nickel Corp., CTP Construction and Mining Corp., Dinapigue Mining Corp., Eramen Minerals, Inc., FCF Minerals, Inc., Filminera Resources Corp., Hinatuan Mining Corp., Lepanto Consolidated Mining Co., LNL Archipelago Minerals, Inc., Platinum Group Metals Corp. and Taganito Mining Corp.
Source: Philippines News Agency
HCM City: An event named ‘Live Green with Gen G Festival’ was held in Ho Chi Minh City on February 24 to wrap up and mark the success of the second season of the ‘Live Green and Wellness with Gen G’ campaign launched by Pananasonic towards a green, wellness and sustainable lifestyle for young generations, pioneering in solving the problem of global warming.
Winners of the ‘Gen G Ambassador Programme’ – a playground for those who are keen to study and propose their own initiatives addressing issues relating to climate change and the environment – were announced. At the event, the winners talked about their initiatives on emission reduction.
The campaign is one of many initiatives being undertaken toward realising the Panasonic Group’s commitment to ‘Panasonic Green Impact’, which was announced in January, 2022. The group committed to reaching net zero by 2030 in Panasonic operating companies worldwide and reducing CO2 emissions by 300 million tonnes throughout its value chain by 2050, equivalent to 1% of cur
rent global CO2 emissions.
In December 2022, Panasonic Vietnam officially launched its ‘Live Green and Wellness with Gen G’ campaign to inspire young Vietnamese people as well as other members of the public to lead an environment-friendly and comprehensively healthy lifestyle, contributing to the wellness and sustainable development of Vietnam. ‘Gen G’ is Panasonic’s new concept of a Leading Green Generation.
The campaign included a variety of online and offline activities aimed at promoting awareness, providing empowerment, and facilitating capacity building for Vietnamese youth in relation to the topics of the environment and climate change.
The Centre for Natural Resources and Environment and Communication under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, other partners such as the United Nations Development Programme, NGOs and youth networks of the Central Youth Union implemented activities including “Gen G Unitour’, ‘Green Lifestyle Challenges’ and ‘Gen G Ambassador Programme’.
“Gen G Unitour”
is the main activityorganised into a series of events at six major universities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, aiming to inspire green, sustainable lifestyles of Gen G. The events attracted more than 1,600 students and young people, collected more than 900kg of used batteries, 626kg of paper boxes, more than 2,500 plastic bottles./.
Source: Vietnam News Agency