At Sibanye-Stillwater, embedding sustainability is an imperative of the performance excellence pillar of our strategy. This approach also involves appropriate and effective management of a diversity of heritage sites located within or close to our operations. Recognition and management of heritage sites pays tribute to the history of the areas we operate within, and thereby acknowledges, honours and respects the legacies of all our stakeholders.
Protecting our past into the future
Many of our operations are in areas that have a deep mining and cultural history with a rich, varied heritage formed over centuries. The communities residing nearby, have spiritual, cultural and customary connections, and as a Group, we honour and respect this. As per our Heritage Resource Management Position statement, we further recognise, amongst others, that heritage resources are often unique and rare, fragile due to neglect, exploitation or even destruction, and that we have a legal and moral obligation to preserve, protect, manage and care for heritage resources within our mining footprints.
Sibanye-Stillwater’s commitment to sound and sustainable heritage resources management, is described in its Heritage Resource Management Position Statement.
Sibanye-Stillwater defines a heritage resource as:
Any place or object of cultural significance in terms of archaeological, palaeontological aesthetic, architectural, historical, scientific, artistic, social, spiritual, linguistic or technological value for past, present and future generations. These heritage resources can be tangible (gravesites, buildings and artefacts) or intangible (language, traditions, indigenous knowledge systems and rituals), and they can be immovable (places and structures) or movable (books and historical documents). Heritage sites comprise single or multiple heritage resources and are deserving of preservation or investigation.
Share your story
We invite you to share your heritage-related questions and stories with us. Feel free to contact:
Our Heritage sites
Sibanye-Stillwater’s operations have rich and diverse heritages with some 1,032 (2024: 953) heritage sites across the Group, including grave sites, iron age and stone age archaeological finds, and historical mine buildings. The frameworks to which we subscribe — including ICMM, the WGC, and the UNGC — reinforce industry’s role in the protection of cultural heritage.
We integrate heritage protection into environmental assessments and site-specific agreements across our global operations. In the US, heritage sites were reassessed during the environmental and social impact assessment for new facilities at East Boulder Mine, leading to mitigation commitments such as ethnographic studies and historical documentation.
Our heritage site inventories for the SA operations use location mapping and are integrated with our geographic information system (GIS).
For details on these sites per operational region, see:
Explore our heritage sites
EU sites
In Finland, protection of heritage sites is part of the EIA, which we completed for the Syväjärvi mine, Kokkola Lithium refinery, Päiväneva concentrator and Rapasaari mine. The only antiquities identified were ancient tar pits located at the Päiväneva concentrator and Syväjärvi mine areas. Our construction and mining development took this into consideration, and these sites are protected.
Australian sites
Heritage sites at Century are documented and preserved pursuant to legislative requirements and the Gulf Communities Agreement (by which benefits of mining are shared with the traditional owners of the land). We also have a site-specific cultural heritage management plan to ensure compliance to the Gulf Communities Agreement. At Mt Lyell we have 29 heritage sites and management approaches are already in place in accordance with the Copper Mines of Tasmania Agreement.
