Cerro Vanguardia

Cerro Vanguardia S.A., a mining company engaged in gold and silver production in the Province of Santa Cruz, considers it essential that all activities in its operation are conducted in an efficient and responsible manner, with special care for the Environment and the Health and Safety of its own personnel and its contractors’ staff members.

Consequently, Cerro Vanguardia S.A. is committed to an ongoing and systematic effort to expand, integrate and improve its Health, Safety, and Environmental Risk Management, around objectives supporting the business and operation sustainability, with programs including:

• Environmental issues and risk identification, assessment and addressing
• Overall workplace improvement
• Contamination prevention
• Effective emergency preparedness and response
• Continuous improvement of integrated business risk management

To this end, Cerro Vanguardia has set for itself the following duties:

1. Performing permanent risk assessments, tracking compliance with and adherence to controls and unyielding principles.
2. Compliance with applicable laws and voluntarily adopted commitments.
3. Every individual, either directly or indirectly related to the Company, must be duly informed of and abide by Environmental standards, take care
4. of his/her own safety and that of all those whose might be impacted by their activities.
5. Conducting every task with due care for Environmental, Health and Safety Risk Management. No objective is so important that it might warrant
6. acting otherwise.
7. Making a responsible use of natural resources.
8. Preserving people’s dignity in all our interactions, ensuring fair and dignified treatment at all Organization levels. .
9. Informing and educating people at all levels to be competent in the performance of their duties and responsibilities.
10. Supporting and contributing to the sustainable development of the communities we interact with.
11. Ensuring the dissemination of this policy to all direct and indirect employees and to all stakeholders who so request.

Ser responsables

Cerro Vanguardia is well aware of its social and environmental responsibilities and, for this reason, it has defined as one of its main objectives to manage its business with absolute respect for the Environment and the community where it conducts its operations.To this end, our governing principles are related to the preventing all kinds of contamination, being responsible in waste and water management and monitoring the environment and preserving natural resources on an ongoing basis.

Beginning in 2009, a Participative Environment Monitoring System was implemented, through which representatives of the Puerto San Julian community and its area of influence, every month, join as a team for the purpose of implementing sampling and sample analysis processes which allow them to monitor and check that the company complies with all applicable laws, rules and regulations established at the domestic and international levels.

It is worth noting that Cerro Vanguardia conducts additional environmental assessments seeking to control any impact of its activities on the area, including:

• Meteorological variables.
• Surface and subsurface aquifer water monitoring
• Cyanide concentration level at the tailings storage facility
• Gas emission levels
• Soil, vegetal and animal protection jointly with Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (UNPA)
• Acoustic impact
• Particulate dust density in air

Cerro Vanguardia has obtained certification under ISO 14001 (2004), ISO 9001 (2008) standards for its laboratory and melting plant, and under OHSAS 18001(2007), all of which are witness to the continuous improvement efforts of the company towards compliance with the highest environmental standards, people’s safety and product quality.

Did you know that…

…despite the harsh climate conditions at the Patagonian central plateau, native vegetation and animals continue evolving and growing in numbers? The region hosts a number of “endemic” species, a name given on account of their being unique in the world; a good and important reason to know them, value them and protect them.