Another gold price spike ‘is coming’ - Barrick Gold CEO … Hambro pointed out that capital flows are changing dramatically towards more ESG-compliant companies. “It is not just a function of liquidity, but it’s a fundamental shift in capital markets. This is about investing from a more evolved perspective into companies that are compliant through the ESG lens.”

Being a good steward of the environment is core to the mining companies, Bristow said, noting that there needs to be a standardized format and investors could have access to. “One of the critical issues is trying to get equivalency. To get one version of the truth that is trusted. That is a challenge to the industry. We need to embrace our critics and work with our institutions,” he said. “What we haven’t done a good job of is make it uniform.”

The ESG standardization is like the early days of safety culture and reporting of incidents, Hambro said. “There were lots of metrics that people were using. It took a while to become standardized. But now that it is, the industry has become much safer.”

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