Social capital is any value added to the activities and economic outputs of an organisation by human relationships, partnerships and cooperation.

Corporate social investment

The Venture

The Venture's corporate social investment (CSI) spend for the 12-month period to December 2024 was R116 million (2023: R96 million). Merafe contributes to 20.5% of this spend.

This includes expenditure on inter alia enterprise and job creation projects, education and skills development, social and community development projects, health and wellness projects, strengthening of local institutions, environment initiatives and culture and art projects.

The venture projects include:

• supporting TVET College in Mashishing with the construction of an additional eight lecture rooms;
• infrastructure projects which include community halls in Ga-Masha Nkotoane, Ga-Masha Ntake, Ga-Mampuru and community crèches;
• R577 Road Infrastructure project – a collaborative project with neighbouring mines;
• building new classrooms and ablution facilities at the Steelpoort Academy School;
• collaborative project in Limpopo, which is the rebuild of a steel bridge;
• solar Infrastructure at House Sering;
• ongoing project of electrification for 1 200 homes in Steelpoort/Kutullo;
• implementation of Phase 2 of the Sekhukhune Water Project; and
• our ongoing sanitary towel donation drive which has empowered over 15 000 girls across three provinces to continue their education uninterrupted during their menstruation.

Merafe

The Merafe CSI spend in 2024 was R3 million in addition to its contribution (20.5%) to the Venture's CSI spend referred to above.

Merafe has been supporting both Meriti Secondary School (Meriti) and Boitekong Secondary School (Boitekong) with the implementation of a variety of infrastructure, curriculum and social welfare projects through Adopt-a-School Foundation (the Foundation). Both schools are in the North West province and are situated within communities that are characterised by poverty, violence, crime, alcohol and substance abuse, family disorganisation and despair. These structural impediments have infiltrated themselves into the school environment as identified by the projects and affect the normal functioning of teaching and learning within the schools. The projects are facilitated to address these problems, hence engagement of all stakeholders including learners, educators, service providers from the community and parents.

Health, Sanitation and Sexuality Education Projects:

The aim and objectives of the Health, Sanitation and Sexuality Education project is to provide a conducive space and platform to educate and empower teenagers (both female and male learners) in schools, to make informed decisions relating to sexual relations in order to curb teenage pregnancy in schools. The programme involves learners as active participants (led by Peer Educators) with the support of educators, parents and relevant stakeholders within the community.

Moral Regeneration Project: Social ills and violence in communities and schools continue to have an impact on the children's wellbeing and learning opportunities. The overall goal of the project is to engage learners in dialogue sessions on issues pertaining to sound morals and values (address issues of violence), and help learners develop social, ethical, emotional, physical and cognitive competencies to enable them to set personal goals, as well as participate in the creation of a conducive learning environment.

Psychosocial support services: To address the needs of vulnerable learners at schools, psychosocial support has been added to the projects. The service provider, Hartbeespoort Parent and Child Counselling Centre provides psychosocial support services to learners as an addition to the project. The process involves the identification of learners with social problems and creates sustainable referral pathways with external stakeholders, including follow-ups of all referred cases.

In addition, Merafe also supports various education programmes at the schools, including educator development and supplementary lessons in mathematics, physical science and life science.

Merafe's interventions in Meriti and Boitekong are informed by a regular needs analysis exercise that the Foundation carries out in consultation with the schools.

Enterprise development

The Venture

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in job creation in South Africa. Our commitment to their development is a cornerstone of Merafe and the Venture's efforts to enhance the socio-economic capacity of our communities. This initiative also strengthens our procurement from black-owned enterprises. In alignment with the Mining Charter Scorecard, the Venture dedicated R20 million to enterprise development in 2024, matching our investment from the previous year.

In our ongoing commitment to support small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), we have engaged in several capacity-building initiatives. Through strategic partnerships with the South African Institute for Chartered Accountants and the Gordon Institute of Business Science, we have focused on business and entrepreneurial development. We proudly support SMMEs from Rustenburg, Brits and Steelpoort.

See Stakeholders in this report for a review of stakeholder engagement.
See Human capital in this report for further information on the range of skills training the Venture provides and its investment in this training.

We have also prioritised creating business opportunities for local SMMEs within our host communities. In cases where capacity is lacking, we implement a ring-fencing policy, partnering SMMEs with established companies such as the Rekaofela Consortium, which specialises in underground secondary support.

Our supplier development efforts have included the donation of machinery and startup resources to SMMEs. Additionally, we have contributed livestock, tractors, and established a fully operational PPE factory as part of our Enterprise Development programme. To further support our SMMEs, we offer interest-free loans to those contracted to our operations.

Merafe

Merafe invested R18 million in 2024 for the enterprise and supplier development fund, which supports SMEs through responsible investment to promote the growth and sustainability of black suppliers. Merafe has partnered with two service providers to identify black SMEs in local communities and provide support through various enterprise and supplier development funding initiatives.

Skills development and job creation

The Venture

The Venture recognises its commitment to employing local people whenever possible, which benefits both the Venture and the local communities. Direct employment at the Venture's operations, indirect employment through contractors, and using local suppliers provide an income for thousands of families.

Our commitment to employing local people includes providing training opportunities and skills development that enable community members to meet the Venture's competency requirements.

Our community portable skills development assisted 634 unemployed youth with skills in various areas such as road work repairs, brick making, plumbing, baking, basic computer skills, and beauty and cosmetic skills which will give them the opportunity to pursue employment as an entrepreneur. We further introduced solar panel installation and maintenance, and are training emerging entrepreneurs at our local business incubation hubs as well as at the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Merafe

Merafe is committed to empowering the future generation through our comprehensive bursary programme. In 2024, Merafe sponsored six beneficiaries studying for degrees in the science and engineering fields. The bursary programme offers holistic support, including tuition fees, accommodation, a living stipend, stationery, textbooks and tutoring. The bursary programme extends beyond traditional financial aid and includes continuous learning through soft skills development, driving school lessons, leadership programmes, work readiness preparation, networking opportunities and holiday camps.

In addition to the above, Merafe funded a career day to empower high school learners from Meriti and Boitekong. The purpose is to equip learners with tools to make informed career choices, make timely applications at tertiary education institutions, and give them the courage to pursue a successful life upon matriculating. The sessions at each school incorporated psychometric testing, motivational speaking and learning from experiences and insights shared by guest speakers.

In 2024, Merafe formalised training programmes and partnered with service providers offering one-year learnership (vocational) training. Seven abled and disabled learners were enrolled in various SETA-accredited programmes, received a monthly stipend and gained experiential learning with host employers.

Procurement

The Venture's performance in terms of the discretionary procurement targets of the Mining Charter Scorecard is set out below.

In terms of the new Mining Charter, procurement spend by the Venture for 2024 was approximately R29.56 billion. Of this, R19.88 billion was on discretionary spend. R8.34 billion of the discretionary spend was on mining goods (52.68% B-BBEE spend) and R11.54 billion on services (63.69% B-BBEE spend).

	Total procurement spend R	Non-discretionary spend R	Discretionary spend R	B-BBEE spend R	%*
Capital + consumables (mining goods)	8 504 280 162	166 928 315	8 337 351 847	4 392 191 313	52.68
Services	21 052 966 893	9 510 811 495	11 542 155 399	7 351 213 081	63.69
Total	29 557 247 055	9 677 739 810	19 879 507 246	11 743 404 394

* B-BBEE spend as a % of discretionary spend.

Public health and HIV and Aids

The Venture favours a united approach to public health, whereby we collaborate with government, international organisations and NGOs to make the most impact at community level. The public-private partnerships formed by the Venture provide communities access to prevention, treatment and care for HIV and Aids as well as other communicable and associated diseases.

The Venture supports the government's HIV counselling and treatment campaign by providing funding and testing sites. It has also funded health clinics and hospices in the communities in which it operates, including an HIV and Aids clinic in Lydenburg in Mpumalanga province. There is also a health clinic at the Lion ferrochrome plant in Limpopo province.

Respecting the rights of communities

Neither Merafe nor the Venture tolerate any form of discrimination, as our policies clearly state, and our employees and stakeholders are to be treated with dignity in a manner that is culturally appropriate, irrespective of gender, background or race.

Human rights and ethics

Merafe subscribes to the fundamental principles of human rights as enshrined in our country's Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our policies and practices have been aligned with both to ensure that all our employees and stakeholders are treated with dignity and in a manner that is culturally appropriate, irrespective of gender, background or race. Furthermore, Glencore is a signatory to and has accepted the Voluntary Principles of Security and Human Rights.

Ethics

The Merafe Code of Ethics governs the way we do business and the way our directors and employees engage with our stakeholders. The code, which is binding on our directors, employees and contractors, provides guidelines for behaviour which is above reproach.

Merafe has a formal whistleblowing policy in place for the confidential reporting of any breaches of its Code of Ethics policy. There were no reports of any breaches in 2024.

Traditional authorities

Merafe is dedicated to supporting the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM) and adhering to the performance expectations related to Traditional Authorities. Through our proactive engagements with Traditional Authorities in the vicinity of our operations, we have successfully enhanced transparency, promptly addressed complaints and grievances, and fostered cooperation with neighbouring communities.

Stakeholder responsiveness

Merafe and the Venture address material issues we have identified that could impact negatively or positively on our key stakeholders. These stakeholders include national, provincial and local government in their roles as regulators and partners; the trade unions in their role as representatives of the Venture's employees who are from local communities; and our investors and business partners who are affected by all aspects of our business. The impact of our most material issues in regard to the human, natural, social and manufactured capitals on our stakeholders, together with our responsiveness on these issues, is outlined in this report.

While Merafe has direct relationships with certain key stakeholders in connection with community matters, we also have indirect relationships through our partnership with Glencore in the Venture. As managers of the Venture's day-to-day operations, Glencore takes responsibility for engaging with the Venture's stakeholders.

All operations and projects within the Venture are required to annually review their stakeholder engagement plans, which encompass Traditional Authorities and other relevant stakeholder groups. Throughout the year, the Venture's operations conducted formal community stakeholder meetings whenever possible. Additionally, virtual engagements were maintained where in‑person was not possible to ensure continuous communication.

Our corporate social investment and social labour plans are aligned to the objectives outlined in the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), the National Development Plan for South Africa and the Integrated Development Plans for Local Municipalities.

All the Venture's operations and projects are expected to review the stakeholder engagement plans every year. The Venture's operations held formal community stakeholder meetings during the year.