By Kirsten McMahon


It’s hard to imagine the highly toxic process for gold-extraction becoming eco-friendly, but that’s precisely what the legal department at Barrick Gold Corp. is committed to doing.

Barrick’s legal team, headed by Patrick Garver, was recognized with the Corporate Counsel Environmental Leadership Award at Insight Information’s second annual Corporate Counsel Forum, held late last month in Toronto.

Nella Cotrupi, team leader of conference development at Insight, was on hand to present the award and says the reason it was established was to recognize environmental leadership with in-house counsel involvement.

"We do work with a lot of corporate entities, and there are many entities that are taking significant steps already on the environmental front, and we decided to establish this award to recognize environmental leadership -  and, in particular, environmental leadership that has a significant contribution component from the legal department," she says.

"Not always the sexiest department in the organization, but I think that the opportunities are there to take leadership in this area and I think this is happening."

The inaugural award was presented to Barrick Gold by Green Business magazine publisher Frank Shoniker, lawyer Marc McAree of Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP, and Ron Dembo, CEO of Zerofootprint.

"Barrick’s legal department participates in the business of Barrick’s environmental health and safety committee that approves all of the company’s major environmental programs and policies. And in 2007, Barrick instituted a company-wide mercury-monitoring program that is an international best practice and is a beyond-compliance program," said McAree when presenting the award to Benjamin Little, director of government affairs, who filled in for Garver, who was unable to attend the ceremony.

Barrick is the world’s largest gold producer, boasting 27 mines on five continents. It is also a signatory and founding partner of the International Cyanide Management Code (ICMC).

The ICMC is a voluntary initiative for the gold-mining industry and the producers and transporters of the cyanide used in gold mining (known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur-Forrest process.) It focuses on the safe management of cyanide that is produced, transported, and used for the recovery of gold. The code also addresses cyanidation mill tailings and leach solutions, and includes requirements related to financial assurance, accident prevention, emergency response, training, public reporting, stakeholder involvement, and verification procedures.

Last year, Barrick certified nine mines under the ICMC and is striving to do the rest.

"Social and environmental responsibility, and corporate social responsibility generally, really is a fundamental part of the way that Barrick operates around the world," said Little. "That’s not just because it’s the right thing to do, although that’s a large part of it, and it’s not just because it’s a legal obligation, although in some respects that’s part of the equation as well, but it’s also because there’s a compelling business case for acting as a responsible mining company globally."

Little said the company often sees examples of other companies, particularly in developing countries, that don’t operate pursuant to high standards of corporate social responsibility and they do so at their peril.

"Unfortunately, I think they make things more difficult for companies that do operate to the higher standards," he said. "It’s certainly in our interest that companies respect robust standards in all of these areas, particularly in the environmental realm, where as a gold mining company you’re not able to make mistakes. You have to operate at the highest standards all of the time."

Little says Barrick’s commitment to environmentally responsible mining spans all phases of its projects. "It starts when our geologists begin exploring in new areas and it carries through to project development, the operation of a project - which for goldmines can sometimes be upward of 20 years - and then a particularly critical part is in the closure process."

Closing a mine - known as the reclamation process - involves creating useful landscapes that meet a variety of goals. It includes all aspects of this work, including material placement, stabilizing, capping, regrading,  placing cover soils, revegetation,  and maintenance.

In July, Barrick announced plans to invest $68 million in projects in Chile and Tanzania that will harness the advantages of clean energy and enhance existing power infrastructure.

"We find that the focus on clean energy is extremely important in terms of ensuring continued community support for projects. Local politicians like these a great deal and, again, it helps us fulfill what we do with our environmental mandate."

The runner-up of the Corporate Counsel Environmental Leadership Award was Maria Tesla, vice president and general counsel, corporate and legal planning, of Canon Canada Inc.

"A lot of the environmental work that’s done at Canon flows through the legal department," said McAree in presenting the runner-up award to Tesla.

"Various initiatives at Canon include moving towards ensuring that suppliers and customers of Canon are acting in an environmentally conscious manner," McAree said. "Through the legal department, there has been work done with others in a co-ordinated fashion through the organization to develop the EcoSense trademark, which is applied to identify Canon’s energy-efficient products."

Reprinted with permission from Law Times.

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