A Sustainable Approach
Cameco is one of the world’s largest uranium producers. We want to bring the multiple benefits of clean, safe and reliable nuclear energy to the world, and are committed to delivering our products responsibly.
For us, sustainable development is a management philosophy and process that helps us:
- build trust, credibility and corporate reputation
- gain and protect community support to operate and grow
- attract and retain employees
- manage risk
- drive innovation and continual improvement to build competitive advantage
As part of our sustainable approach, we proactively address the social, environmental and financial aspects of our business with communities near our operations, particularly in northern Saskatchewan.
The five-pillar approach below defines our activities everywhere we operate. Our goals under this approach are to develop and maintain long-term relationships, and provide communities with employment and business development opportunities and capacity building.
Workforce development – The goal of our workforce development program is to ensure students stay in school, have the means to attend post-secondary programs, and receive the training they need to advance if we hire them. We have developed a large suite of programs in northern Saskatchewan to help community members obtain employment in our industry and help us to meet our surface lease commitments.
Business development – We use our best efforts to procure the majority of our services for our operations from local businesses. Since 2004, we’ve procured over $3 billion in services alone from northern Saskatchewan businesses. In northern Saskatchewan, we have developed initiatives like our northern preferred supplier program and direct source strategy to help support local businesses.
Community investment – We support communities by providing funds for infrastructure and programming in every region where we operate. In northern Saskatchewan, our focus is on improving the lives of northern youth through education, sports, recreation and health promotion.
Environmental stewardship – We actively encourage local communities to participate in the environmental assessment process and ongoing environmental monitoring activities. In northern Saskatchewan, programs that support our environmental stewardship goals include the Athabasca Working Group, Northern Saskatchewan Environmental Quality Committee and project-specific engagement programs. We also meet with individuals, including local trappers, and communities to assess the importance of traditional activities in relation to mining activities.
Community engagement – We meet regularly with priority communities to keep them informed about our projects and licensing plans and to involve them in our projects and operations in other appropriate ways. Programs that support our community engagement goals include our Cameco Northern Tour, local community websites, community forums, project-specific engagement programs and mine tours.
Visit Sustainability at cameco.com to see our Sustainable Development reporting.