INVESTORS AND MEDIA Media release

Media release Gold Fields' Recent Esg Achievements
Tuesday, 31 January 2023

Gold Fields Limited (Gold Fields) (JSE, NYSE: GFI) has once again been included in the 2022 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI), one of only 485 companies globally to achieve this.

The GEI ranking, released today, is one of a number of recent achievements by Gold Fields, which has entrenched its commitment to sound environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices as one of the key pillars of its strategy. In December 2021, it also launched wide-ranging 2030 ESG targets that will underpin the company's long-term, sustainable value creation over the next decade.

"We need to manage ESG issues in full alignment with our business strategy and to fulfil our purpose of creating enduring value beyond mining," says Gold Fields Interim CEO Martin Preece. "Our stakeholders are not only expecting that we pay great attention to ESG issues, but also that we disclose the impact of these issues."

"A critical part of this commitment is transparent reporting and benchmarking ourselves against our peers through internationally recognised frameworks and indices," he adds.

Over the past two months, Gold Fields has recorded a number of strong performances in this area.

Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI)

This is the fifth year in a row that Gold Fields has been listed in the GEI, which measures policies across five pillars: female leadership, equal pay, inclusive culture, anti-sexual harassment policies, and pro-women brand. Scores are also awarded for transparency on gender-related data.

Gold Fields achieved an average GEI score of 77%, up from 69% in 2021, and above the 73% average of other companies in the index. Its disclosure score was 100%.

Across its global workforce at the end of 2022, 23% of Gold Fields employees were women (2022: 22%). Over a six-year period, the improvements have been more pronounced: in 2016 women representation in the total workforce and in leadership was only 15% each. Over half of female employees at Gold Fields work in core mining roles.

Gold Fields is targeting 30% gender diversity among its workforce by 2030. "To achieve our 2030 targets, we have to have a gender bias in terms of our talent management and recruitment policies as well as targeted development programmes for women and other underrepresented groups," says Rosh Bardien, Gold Fields' EVP for People and Organisational Effectiveness.

In December last year, Standard Bank ranked Gold Fields as one of South Africa's top gender-empowered companies in mining for its initiatives to uplift women and support organisations that contribute to gender empowerment.

Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI)

Gold Fields was again ranked among the leading mining companies in the prestigious DJSI for 2022, which was released in December last year and rates companies on their disclosure in key ESG areas. Gold Fields was ranked 5th among over 150 mining companies assessed and 2nd among gold mining companies. Gold Fields' score was 79/100, more than double the industry average of 29 and just four percentage points behind the leader, Newmont Gold of the US.

Gold Fields has consistently achieved a Top 5 metals and mining ranking in the DJSI since it started participating in 2011. The scorecard measures a range of ESG management practices. Gold Fields was the joint top mining performer in the environmental dimension, sixth in the social dimension and eighth in the governance and economic dimension.

The DJSI assessment is carried out by ratings agency S&P Global among the world's 15,000+ largest companies.

Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) - Water Security

Gold Fields maintained its leadership in water stewardship as adjudicated by the CDP. In its 2022 assessment, announced in December last year, the CDP again ranked Gold Fields A-, a step below the highest possible A level. The average 2022 score among the 169 mining and metals companies surveyed was a B- and only 12 were ranked in the leadership category.

This recognises Gold Fields' demonstrable actions to protect water resources as well as transparent reporting on its water performance. Water stewardship as one of Gold Fields' six key ESG priorities and it has two water management performance targets for 2030:

  • Ensure that 80% of the water used by our operations is recycled or reused. In 2022, 75% of all water consumed was either recycled or reused.
  • Reduce freshwater usage by 45% from a 2018 base. By 2022 a 41% reduction had been achieved.

"We have made excellent progress to improve our water stewardship in recent years and will require concerted management focus to continue reducing the freshwater intensity of our operations and increase the level of water recycled or reused,'' Preece says, noting that Gold Fields' Board recently approved an updated Water Stewardship Policy Statement.


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Gold Fields Ltd. published this content on 31 January 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 31 January 2023 12:17:06 UTC.