• Minera Yanacocha's Human Rights Superintendent, Carlos Scerpella, highlighted the challenges and opportunities of Due Diligence

Carlos Scerpella, Human Rights Superintendent at Minera Yanacocha, participated as a speaker at Rumbo a PERUMIN [The road to PERUMIN]: “Evolution of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Issues in Mining,” where he addressed the importance of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRD) in mining companies.

“There is a new requirement for the business sector. The mining sector has the opportunity and responsibility to embed human rights across the board and we are learning, working together with many stakeholders to become as robust and renowned in human rights as we are in safety management,” Scerpella said.

The speaker at the event held as part of Jueves Minero [Mining Thursdays,] organized by Instituto de Ingenieros de Minas del Peru [the Institute of Mining Engineers of Peru,] explained that although companies have been managing their corporate governance respecting human rights, they tend to do so predominantly at the internal level. However, what Due Diligence proposes is to formally incorporate the risk of business activities that have an impact on people's human rights, both internally and externally.

Therefore, Scerpella suggested that companies in the mining sector assess the risks of their business activities that may impact the human rights of people working in the organization, those belonging to the Direct Influence Area, and those in the Indirect Influence Area.

“There are challenges and opportunities for Human Rights Due Diligence. It is about understanding the duty we have. Firstly, the duty to identify the risks around our business in order to prevent, mitigate or remediate them. The risks identified must be integrated through a plan to address them. And finally, what we are doing about them must be communicated,” he pointed out.

He mentioned, as an example of the progress that has been made in this regard, that today companies have a corporate governance framework that includes human rights. They also implement due diligence, share information among companies in the sector, engage in dialogue with communities, civil society and human rights institutions, and involve important sector organizations (such as the ICMM and the SNMPE) in the development of guidelines on the subject.

“It must be understood that the Due Diligence processes, which are a challenge and an opportunity, must be carried out based on the risk analysis of the areas, are progressive and subject to continuous improvement, always prioritizing the most relevant ones,” he added.