Speaker
Mr
Frank Harris
(Rio Tinto Uranium)
Description
The World Nuclear Association (WNA) has developed internationally standardized reporting (‘Checklist’) for uranium mining and processing sites. This reporting is to achieve widespread utilities/miners agreement on a list of topics/indicators for common use in demonstrating miners’ adherence to strong sustainable development performance.
Nuclear utilities are often required to evaluate the sustainable development performance of their suppliers as part of a utility operational management system. In the present case, nuclear utilities are buyers of uranium supplies from uranium miners and such purchases are often achieved through the utility uranium or fuel supply management function. This Checklist is an evaluation tool which has been created to collect information from uranium miners’ available annual reports, data series, and measurable indicators on a wide range of sustainable development topics to verify that best practices in this field are implemented throughout uranium mining and processing sites.
The Checklist has been developed to align with the WNA’s policy document Sustaining Global Best Practices in Uranium Mining and Processing: Principles for Managing Radiation, Health and Safety, and Waste and the Environment which encompasses all applicable aspects of sustainable development to uranium mining and processing. The eleven sections of the Checklist are:
1. Adherence to Sustainable Development
2. Health, Safety and Environmental Protection
3. Compliance
4. Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Engagement
5. Management of Hazardous Materials
6. Quality Management Systems
7. Accidents and Emergencies
8. Transport of Hazardous Materials
9. Systematic Approach to Training
10. Security of Sealed Radioactive Sources and Nuclear Substances
11. Decommissioning and Site Closure
The Checklist benefits from many years of nuclear utility experience in verifying the sustainable development performance of uranium mining and processing sites. This Checklist is therefore not new and directly aims to share a common list with a view to standardize this reporting between utilities and miners at the international level.
Primary author
Mr
Frank Harris
(Rio Tinto Uranium)
