Platinum group metal miners have dominated the seventh annual Ernst & Young Excellence in Sustainability Reporting awards.

Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum, Northam Platinum and Lonmin all featured in the top ten performing companies in South Africa.

First place went to the Bidvest Group, while state utility Eskom came in second. The remaining places in the top ten went to AngloGold Ashanti, Exxaro Resources, Gold Fields and Sasol.

Jeremy Grist, head of climate change and sustainability services at Ernst & Young, notes that resources firms have a vested interest in strong sustainability reporting.

"By the nature of their businesses, resource companies have to be very aware of sustainability because of the lifecycle of the mined resource and their responsibility to rehabilitate the environment at the end of the project," he explained.

"In addition, they often operate in hazardous environments where safety is paramount."

Mr Grist explains that while Eskom and Bidvest are not resource companies, they have shown a "strong commitment" to sustainability.

The financial crisis has thrown sustainability into the spotlight as managers are faced with longer term targets.

"A lot of their benefits are deferred over three and five years to ensure that managers take the longer view and safeguard a company's future," Mr Grist says.

The report from Ernst & Young also identified where companies are merely paying "lip service" to sustainability and not integrating the topic into their annual reports sufficiently.

"Simply adding pages to the annual report does not impress the adjudicators," Mr Grist says. "They want to see that the company has taken a fresh look at the structure of its annual report and put the necessary work into integration."

Royal Bafokeng Platinum was rated "good", scoring above 60 per cent, while Aquarius Platinum came in at under 50 per cent.

Next year Ernst & Young will be launching its Excellence in Integrated Reporting Survey, which will merge Excellence in Sustainability and Excellence in Corporate Reporting.

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Excellence in Sustainability Reporting 2011 (25/10/11) 

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