Assessing materiality

We understand that good sustainability reporting focuses on the issues that are most important to our stakeholders as well as to us, which is why we are continually refining and improving our content selection process for sustainability reporting.

Our process for assessing material sustainability risks was extensively reviewed in the course of 2009 as part of the changes we are making to our sustainability reporting. The materiality assessment process that we developed was based on stakeholder input as well as the company’s own risk management processes and was implemented following extensive consultation with internal and external stakeholders, including potential users of the report, experts in the field of sustainability reporting, industry associations and peer group companies.

We assess issues according to a three-stage process:

1. A review of our key sustainability risks, as identified in our global risk management system. The system is updated on an ongoing basis through site-level workshops and cross-disciplinary discussions.
2. Understanding key stakeholder issues. In 2009, this was carried out by referencing the GRI guidelines as a proxy for our principal stakeholder concerns. Other direct sources of information on stakeholder concerns were reviewed, where they were available. These included stakeholder surveys and feedback given through our community engagement structures.
3. The results of this assessment were compared with the sustainability issues identified by the media in relation to AngloGold Ashanti and mining sector peers during the year, and with the key issues cited in peer reports.

The matrix below presents our materiality assessment process diagramatically, showing the two axes we use to assess issues for reporting; the relevance of the issue to society and the impact of the issue on AngloGold Ashanti’s business. We focus in this global report on issues which are shared areas of concern and on which we will engage with key stakeholders in order to identify collaborative solutions.

As a result of our materiality assessment process in 2009, we identified the following group-level issues for this report.

• Safety and health: safeguarding the safety and health of our employees, and of communities surrounding our operations
• Resource custodianship: effective custodianship and management of resources, particularly energy, land and water, in a resource-scarce environment
• Human rights: managing the human rights issues which arise from our operating context
• Delivering economic benefits: addressing expectations from host governments and communities to see greater economic and developmental benefits from the mining industry
• Capacity building, transformation and engagement: developing a competent and engaged workforce, through effective transformation and skills development, and by ensuring that key skills are retained
• Closure planning and provision: ensuring that there is adequate planning and provision for closure during the lifecycle of each operation.

In 2010 our materiality assessment and assurance processes will be further strengthened by putting in place an independent panel to provide expert input on our sustainability performance and reporting. We will also start to draw in a more systematic way on concerns expressed directly by stakeholders in their various engagements with the company.