AGA and its Strategy of Greenwashing

On June 22, the magazine Dinero reported AngloGold Ashanti’s entry into the Global Sustainability Index. There are several ways to interpret this development, the official line being that it shows the level of the company's concern, since "the commitment to social responsibility goes beyond complying with the laws established by the country, and is demonstrated by the voluntary reporting on sustainability that the company carries out." Yet the voluntary reporting carried out by AGA on its sustainability never mentions the size of its operations in Colombia, not even when it was operating through its ghost company Kedhada, or when it acquired hundreds of mining rights, amounting to almost one million hectares.

AGA’s admission to the Global Sustainability Index undoubtedly aims to counter the persistent complaints against the company. It is clear that AGA’s "corporate reputation" has been seriously compromised by the conflicts in which it has become embroiled in several regions of Colombia, and especially in several African countries. Among those that stand out are the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ghana, where AGA has been identified as the worst mining company in the country for its discharging of toxic substances into streams (see the Ghanian environmental authority page which denounces the case of AGA).

Corporate social responsibility is an initiative far removed from the good intentions with which it is sold. It is a voluntary rather than a binding process, while its subjectivity allows impunity from laws and regulations where the government is weak (a good analysis of this can be found in this book).

The President of AGA in Colombia, Rafael Hertz, claims that "commitment to social responsibility goes beyond compliance with the laws established by the country, and is demonstrated by the voluntary reporting on sustainability that the company carries out ". If such a commitment were real we would imagine that the company would be willing to clarify the murky background surrounding the delivery of mining rights by INGEOMINAS [the Colombian state mining agency] in Colombia (see the article on the "rotten pot"), which allowed it to accumulate and consolidate mining rights along the length and breadth of the country. One of the basic principles of corporate social responsibility is transparency. Is AngloGold Ashanti really willing to be transparent with the people of Colombia? The facts leave few grounds for optimism.