Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability

Red Dog is committed to the highest environmental standards and the continuous improvement of our environmental performance

Download/view Red Dog's Environment, Health & Safety Policy (94KB PDF)

Upholding our commitment to environmental protection is Red Dog's ISO 14001:2004 certification. Received in 2004, our ISO 14001 certification means our mine’s environmental management system supports environmental protection, prevents pollution and fosters improvements in environmental performance.

The mine is audited annually and our certification was reconfirmed in the summer of 2007, having successfully completed an independent third-party audit in conformance with ISO 14001:2004.

Our environmental management system pays particular attention to five key areas: 

• Discharges to water;
• Emissions to air;
• Impacts to land and wildlife;
• Consumption of energy and materials; and
• Product and waste handling, storage and disposal.

Since 2000, more than $68 million has been invested to improve and enhance Red Dog’s environmental performance. This includes investing in new equipment and technology and conducting over 300 studies to help us do our job even better.

Working in partnership to help protect Alaska’s pristine Arctic

As part of our operating agreement with NANA and our commitment to protect subsistence resources, an independent Subsistence Committee of local Native hunters and elders was formed in the early 1980s to provide the mine with direction on environmental and subsistence matters.

• The Committee meets on a quarterly basis and has a mandate to guide the mine’s Management Committee to ensure potential environmental impacts are avoided or properly managed.
• The Committee gives the mine the go-ahead for the start of the shipping season in order to avoid conflict with the hunting of marine mammals. They also direct the mine’s 52-mile concentrate haul road with respect to caribou.
• Our environmental technicians consistently test the region’s air, water, soil and wildlife. This includes continually testing the sediment in streams as well as testing the fish, local caribou population and vegetation, such as plants and berries.
• The mine provides monthly environmental reports to the villages of Kivalina and Noatak. Each village is visited several times a year and public meetings are conducted to present new information, and to seek feedback. 

Red Dog operates under some of the world’s most stringent regulations

• We actively comply with 110 permits, regulations, agreements and environmental plans that contain more than 6,000 individual stipulations that involve over 27,000 tasks that we must meet on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis.
• We developed and operate a web-based information system that keeps track of daily compliance tasks that must be completed to meet all of our regulatory and permit requirements. The system tracks environmental and safety incidents and all required corrective and preventive actions, and provides environmental training materials, records, and information on overall environmental performance.