Nornickel Reports Progress in Sustainable Development Performance in 2020

MMC Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest refined nickel and palladium producer, has retained leadership in the global metals and mining industry in terms of industrial health and safety. The injury rate has fallen to a record low level. The Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) reduced further to 0.21 per 1,000,000 man-hours in 2020 from 0.32 in 2019. The total number of occupational accidents decreased 32% year-on-year.

Vladimir Potanin, Nornickel's President, commented on the Company's sustainability efforts in 2020: "The challenges we faced in 2020 confirmed our strategic adherence to the principles and goals of sustainable development, in particular, the principles of the UN Global Compact. We managed to pursue our employees' health and safety as a priority amid the COVID-19 pandemic and effectively adapt our business processes to the new reality. A quick and well-coordinated response to the unprecedented fuel spill in Norilsk helped to prevent a major environmental disaster in the Arctic. The Company has learned its lessons, improved its risk management system and set new goals to mitigate its environmental impact."

Zero injuries remains one of the Company's top strategic goals, with a performance on injuries being among key KPIs with a 20% weight set for the management remuneration. The Company employs strict industrial safety rules, with 17 corporate standards having being developed to mitigate safety-related risks. Since 2014, an annual independent assessment of Nornickel's safety culture has been carried out by an independent consultant. The overall safety culture score is assigned based on the Bradley Curve. Over the past seven years, the Company's assessment has improved from 1.4 to 3.0 points (on a 1-4 points scale, where four indicates strong safety culture).

The Company has maintained social support for its employees at a high standard, having avoided redundancies during the pandemic of COVID-19 and allocating a total of US $161M to fight the outbreak. Moreover, the average monthly salary in 2020 increased by almost 11%, remaining one of the highest in the industry in Russia. The share of employees covered by collective bargaining agreements increased to 93.7% in 2020 (versus 83% in 2019).

Nornickel has significantly upgraded its risk management system, including climate change risks, improved the organisational structure and introduced more stringent environmental KPIs for the management. In particular, annual KPIs for 2021 have been revised to include zero environmental incidents, whereas long-term KPIs are currently being designed to include improvements in environmental performance and reduction of the impact on climate change.

More details about Nornickel's sustainable performance can be found in the Company's annual sustainability report for 2020, available on its internet site. In addition, a special white paper covering its industrial incidents has been published. The paper describes the causes of the incidents, measures taken to eliminate the consequences, rehabilitation efforts, as well as subsequent organizational changes aimed at preventing similar incidents in the future.

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