Nornickel reports sustainable development performance in 2020

Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest refined nickel and palladium producer, has released the results of its sustainability efforts in 2020.

Nornickel has retained leadership in the global metals and mining industry in terms of industrial health and safety. The injury rate has fallen to a record level. The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) reduced further to 0.21 per 1,000,000 man-hours in 2020 from 0.32 in 2019. The total number of occupational accidents decreased 32% year-on-year.

Zero injuries remains one of the Company’s top strategic goals, with a performance on injuries being among key performance indicators (KPIs) with a 20% weight set for the management remuneration. The Company employs strict industrial safety rules, with 17 corporate standards having being developed to mitigate safety-related risks. Since 2014, an annual independent assessment of Nornickel’s safety culture has been carried out by an independent consultant. The overall safety culture score is assigned based on the Bradley Curve. Over the past seven years, the Company’s assessment has improved from 1.4 to 3.0 points (on a 1-4 points scale, where 4 indicates strong safety culture).

The Company has maintained social support for its employees at a high standard, first and foremost, having avoided redundancies during the pandemic of COVID-19. Moreover, the average monthly salary in 2020 increased by almost 11% y-o-y to over RUB 131,000, remaining one of the highest in the industry in Russia. The share of employees covered by collective bargaining agreements increased to 93.7% in 2020 (versus 83% in 2019).

Nornickel has significantly upgraded its risk management system, including climate change risks, improved the organisational structure and introduced more stringent environmental KPIs for the management. In particular, annual KPIs for 2021 have been revised to include zero environmental incidents, whereas long-term KPIs are currently being designed to include improvements in environmental performance and reduction of the impact on climate change.

One of the most important achievements in sustainable development in 2020 was the preparation of a new comprehensive environmental strategy. Six key focus areas have been identified within the strategy covering various aspects of environmental protection, with selected targets set for 2030. For instance, as part of its climate change strategy, Nornickel intends to maintain greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2) at the 2020 level in absolute terms of less than 10 mt of CO2-equivalent while aiming to increase production volumes by 25–30%.