• OPERATIONS
SM: What were some of the highlights emanating from the Respectful Workplace Review conducted in 2023 by Elizabeth Broderick & Co for Gold Fields?
MF: I joined Gold Fields after this review was conducted, and while some of the negative experiences it brought to light were disappointing for the company, they were not entirely unexpected. Across the mining sector, the lived experience of people in the workplace has not always been positive. Unfortunately, this has often become ingrained and treated as culturally‘ normal’ over many years.
At Gold Fields, fostering respectful and inclusive workplaces is now fundamental to who we are and essential to delivering on our safety guarantee: ensuring that everyone goes home safe and well at the end of every shift. We have made strong progress in implementing the recommendations of the review, with over 90 % of them completed by the end of H1 2025. More importantly, these actions are driving a measurable shift in the lived experience of our people, and we are now seeing the early, but encouraging, signs of real transformation taking root.
However, true change extends beyond systems and policies. It also requires reshaping the profile of our workforce to better reflect the diversity of the societies in which we operate. This creates a more inclusive foundation from which we can build deeper, more sustainable impact – one that genuinely transforms our culture, our operations, and ultimately, our industry.
When it comes to delivering positive social and environmental impact, we set our 2030 ESG targets in 2020 with the intention of conducting a midpoint review in 2025, a review that has recently been completed. Alongside this, we initiated a broader exercise to define a clear vision of what we want Gold Fields to look like over the next decade, across all dimensions of our business: safety, people and culture, operational excellence and financial performance. Setting these long-term aspirations was a deliberate move to ensure we plan with intention and align our targets to the future we are building.
We are now integrating our sustainability objectives, including safety, gender diversity, tailings and water stewardship, decarbonisation and value creation for host communities, into a holistic view of our business plan.
The purpose of the mid-term review was to re-evaluate our progress against this vision and to align our 2030 targets more closely with our organisational aspirations for 2035. We are now integrating our sustainability objectives, including safety, gender diversity, tailings and water stewardship, decarbonisation and value creation for host communities, into a holistic view of our business plan. This strategic recalibration ensures that our 2035 ambition is continuously embedded into how we operate, plan and create value beyond mining.
SM: At the London Indaba in June 2025, you spoke about the difference between majors and juniors when it comes to ESG priorities. Can you take us through your experiences in these two sectors?
MF: For a short period, after leaving South32 and before joining Gold Fields, I served as CEO of a small junior gold mining company with operations and projects in the CIS( former Soviet Union). Juniors often operate under significant financial pressure, where resources are scarce and management teams must make daily trade-offs between investing in the business and simply keeping the lights on. In contrast, major mining companies are generally in a more privileged position, able to invest meaningfully beyond the mine gate and deliver positive ESG outcomes at scale.
When we consider frameworks such as the ICMM standards, it’ s important to recognise that they can unintentionally narrow our focus. The emerging and junior mining segments may want to align with global best practice, but capability and financial constraints make full adoption difficult. As the industry seeks to improve its reputation and social contribution, it should not do so solely through the lens of those who already have the resources to comply. Instead, we must explore how to support and uplift the juniors and emerging players who are not yet part of this wellestablished and well-resourced circle. Helping them raise their standards will ultimately contribute to a stronger, more responsible industry overall.
Juniors have an important role to play in our industry. Exploration is often where real innovation emerges and meaningful value creation begins. However, we must find a way, as a global industry, to support those companies that do not yet have the resources to meet ESG standards at the level expected of larger, wellcapitalised miners.
For example, in the junior business I led, it took almost 18 months to secure an engineer of record willing to support the integrity of a high-risk tailings’ facility. The challenge was not a lack of intent, but a scarcity of qualified expertise, much of which is absorbed by major mining companies. Challenges like these can hinder responsible operational practices and ultimately impede efforts to effectively manage sustainability risks across the sector.
60 • African Mining • January 2026 www. africanmining. co. za