Environmental Performance
As an active advocate of responsible mining, PGMC shares a deep appreciation of how our environmental performance can contribute to significant positive change. The Company therefore takes pains to ensure our mining operations comply with stringent and extensive environmental regulations set forth in the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.
Part of these is the requirement for the establishment of the Annual Environmental Protection and Enhancement Program (AEPEP) which cover activities such as rehabilitation of mine disturbed areas, reforestation, construction and maintenance of environmental facilities, solid waste management, hazardous waste management, air quality monitoring, and water quality monitoring.
Specific areas that might impact the environment include stockpile operations, buildings and structures, access roads, drainage systems and water crossings, causeway and shipping operations, among others. The impacts could include sedimentation in rivers and waterways, domestic solid wastes, industrial wastes, noise, conservation values on terrestrial plants, wildlife, freshwater biology and marine biology, as well as heritage and cultural values. These therefore continue to be subjects of the Company’s mitigating control measures.
Through the years, therefore, PGMC has embedded the ISO 14001:2015 into the core system of its mining operations from the clearing of vegetations, stripping off topsoil, mining, truck loading and hauling, stockpiling, LCT loading, pollution control measures, rehabilitation of mined-out areas, and office operations among others. These activities must comply with the EMS procedures and the activity-specific work guidelines geared towards sound environmental management.
PGMC’s adherence to the global environmental standards is evident by the sustained certification to the EMS standard by the ISO certifying company Intertek. PGMC’s EMS practices are always consistent with ISO 14001 requirements based on the internal audit evaluation by the EMS-trained Internal Auditors and validated by the 3rd-party Intertek in its annual surveillance audit. The PDCA principle of the EMS is comprehensively planned in the written procedures and guidelines and was translated into reality by the allocation of adequate resources and funding through the company’s AEPEP.
For 2021, implementation of the EPEP project remained challenging due to the persistent pandemic and the restrictions on people’s movements between regions, provinces, and municipalities. Still, with the commitment of our people, the Company accomplished about 88% of the physical targets of our 2022 AEPEP, while the financial accomplishment was 100.06% of the year’s budget.
The major projects that were not completely done as programmed in the AEPEP 2022 are the causeway revetment project and the concreting of road segment at gates 1 to 4. There was also partial delivery of coconut seedlings as several mechanisms were prioritized to be placed in order to ensure that only good quality coconut seedlings will be delivered.
The rest of the projects were significantly implemented until the 4th quarter of year.
For INC, AEPEP accomplishment is 93% in the Physical and 91% of the allotted 2022 AEPEP Budget.
The project that was not completed was the plantation establishment inside the MPSA area (MFP) and outside the MPSA area (NGP. This is due to lack of available planting area. However, several communications have been made with CENRO-Brooke’s Point and they are already in the process of identifying potential NGP areas that can be adopted by the company.
