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Report to Stakeholders 2005/6: Living Up to Diamonds

Report to Stakeholders 2005/6: Living Up to Diamonds

Published 02-09-07

Submitted by De Beers

February 9, 2007- We are pleased to announce the publication of The De Beers Family of Companies' Report to Stakeholders 2005/6, plus Summary. The report can be found online at www.debeersgroup.com

This report covers our economic, ethics, employee, community and environmental performance from January 2005 until end-September 2006. It documents for the first time the diverse array of sustainable development activities that have been an integral part of our philosophy for years. This report addresses relevant and material issues identified by our stakeholders including competition, black economic empowerment, conflict diamonds, HIV/AIDS, human rights, indigenous peoples, small-scale informal diamond mining and climate change.

The reporting period saw the development our new Purpose, Vision, Values and Principles in partnership with nearly 60 different stakeholder organisations. Our Principles help provide a framework for measuring our contribution to sustainable development.

Performance highlights for 2005/6 include:

  • Investment of more than 61.6% (US$4.9 billion) of our total income in Africa through payments to stakeholders including governments, employees and contractors.

  • Donation of 1.3% (US$13.5 million) of pre-tax profits to the communities where we work. Over 90% of this was disbursed to local communities in Africa to address development needs such as education, health and HIV/AIDS.

  • The sale of 26% equity in De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) to Ponahalo, a broad-based Black Economic Empowerment company, partly owned by our employees and pensioners in South Africa.

  • Participation of 75% of our southern Africa employees in workplace voluntary counselling and testing programmes, with anti-retroviral treatment 100% funded to employees and spouses or life partners.

  • Development of our energy and climate change policy and strategy. Our DBCM operations have set an aggressive energy reduction target of 15% by 2015.

  • Third party verified compliance with our DTC Diamond Best Practice Principles Assurance Programme across the family of companies, and independent third party assurance of the Report.

  • The development of the Mwadui Community Diamond Initiative to address poverty alleviation.
This report has been prepared in accordance with the new Global Reporting Initiative G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. It also applies the Mining and Metals Sector Supplement and the Reporting Guidance on HIV/AIDS and summarises our progress with respect to both the UN Global Compact and the UN Millennium Development Goals.

This report is our invitation to you, to tell us, whether we are living up to diamonds? We welcome you thoughts and feedback. Please go the De Beers website to dowload a copy of the report www.debeersgroup.com

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De Beers

De Beers

The De Beers Group of Companies has a leading role in the diamond exploration, diamond mining, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors.

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