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Argyle water

Water

Water is essential to life. It is inherently linked to healthy, thriving ecosystems and communities, and holds spiritual significance to Indigenous and land-connected Peoples around the world. Water is also an essential resource for our operations, enabling safe access to ore bodies and processing of ore to provide the materials the world needs. 

As water is a finite shared resource, responsible water stewardship includes safeguarding good quality water to help keep it available and clean for the ecosystems and communities that depend on it. It also supports our operations to be stable and sustainable over the long term.  

Our commitment to responsible water management and environmental stewardship is outlined through our business objectives, standards, policies and member association commitments. As a founding ICMM member, we are committed to upholding the .

Read more about our position on our Environment and Nature page. 

Managing water risks

Managing water safely and responsibly is an important part of how we run our business. Our broad approach to risk and governance is described in our Environment and Nature page. Our Environment Standard outlines the requirements for our managed assets.  

We have developed a framework that provides a consistent approach to how we identify, assess, manage and communicate water risk across our portfolio. It builds on our Environment Standard and includes a library of controls. The framework aims to verify that water management is both operationally effective and strategically aligned with our environmental commitments, informing decisions and strategic plans for operational and catchment-level decisions beyond operational sites. It covers 4 categories: 

  • Water resources (issues relating to water withdrawals for supply purposes)
    “Is there enough water available for both environment and community needs, and our operational use?”
  • Water quality and quantity (issues relating to excess surface water management, discharges or seepage)
    “Does the way we manage water on site, or discharge excess water, cause environmental impacts or operational constraints?”
  • Dewatering (issues relating to groundwater withdrawals to achieve safe mining conditions)
    “Does the removal of water from the operational areas of our sites impact regional aquifers or our mine plans?”
  • Long-term obligation (long-term considerations on categories 1-3)
    “Do our operational activities generate long-term or ongoing obligations relating to water”

Our 2025 water risk profile shows how our exposure varies across the 4 risk categories for our operating assets and active closure sites, excluding projects and recent lithium acquisition sites. Scores are relative, and show the level of potential impact, independent of how likely it is to happen or what measures are in place to manage it. See our Sustainability Fact Book for asset-level ratings.

Our standard and control library guide how we monitor and plan for water, use water infrastructure and adapt our approach as conditions change. Water management is connected to other areas of our business and our approach is designed to consider communities, climate change, tailings management and closure.  

A group of workers wearing safety gear walk along a metal bridge structure over a body of water, with dense green forest in the background. The bridge has railings and appears to be part of an industrial facility. Another worker is visible in the foreground, partially out of focus.

Catchment-scale approach

We recognise our role in contributing to responsible water management at a catchment scale.
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Several of our assets are in catchments with concentrated industrial development, and we participate in programs that aim to improve how cumulative impacts are understood or managed at a catchment scale. In other areas we manage regional scale infrastructure and strive to maintain open and collaborative engagement with catchment stakeholders. See the Partnerships section below for examples.

We also reference external global information sources such as the to:

  • understand broader trends in catchment water stress
  • guide aspects of our annual reporting
  • understand water stress based on projected 2030 conditions, incorporating allowance for climate change.

Outcomes of this analysis are described in our Sustainability Fact Book.

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Water and climate change

Climate change is amplifying water risks through variability in rainfall, extreme weather events, and pressure on catchments. We integrate climate risk and resilience into our water planning to maintain a reliable supply for our operations and communities while protecting ecosystems and reducing environmental impacts. Read more about our approach to managing physical climate risk and resilience.

Our performance

Our water performance and data reporting aligns with the which has (GRI) equivalency. View our interactive charts for current and historical data relating to our water performance. Additional information is available in our Sustainability Fact Book. 

Targets

We maintained a water target program for more than 20 years. Our most recent water target program covered the period 2019-2023 and comprised one company-wide target and 6 site-based targets. For information about the previous water targets refer to our 2023 Annual Report. Our Nature Framework includes water-themed Site Improvement Plans (SIPs). Find out more information about our nature targets program and SIPs.

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Our performance

View our interactive charts for current and historical data relating to our performance across air, biodiversity, land, materials and water.

Note: our disclosures now include data for operating lithium assets acquired via Arcadium.

View our performance

Water stories

Water management at Diavik

Making water management clearer

Our new online platform gives a transparent view of our surface water use
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Solving water

A low-carbon way to make fresh water
Reusable bottle

The rise of reusable water bottles

Ever wondered what keeps your water ice-cold on a scorching day? In our podcast, Things You Can’t Live Without, writer, actress and TV host, Alie Ward reveals her surprising must-have – a reusable cup that keeps her water icy even in the LA heat.

Respecting rights

We recognise the importance of sustainably managing water. Through our water stewardship practices, we aim to protect water quality, improve water-use efficiency, and support equitable access to water resources for the communities near where we operate. This includes providing all employees and contractors with access to safe drinking water, gender appropriate sanitation and hygiene at work.

Employees at Richards Bay Minerals
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Examples:

  • Diavik engages with local Indigenous governments and communities, to incorporate Traditional knowledge into our environmental monitoring programs and closure objectives. We work with our Indigenous partners to ensure that water is healthy and safe – not only from a Western science perspective, but also from a cultural-use perspective. The mine’s Aquatic Effects Monitoring Program was designed by community members to evaluate fish health and water quality using Traditional indicators.
  • Oyu Tolgoi is one of the most water-efficient copper mines in the world. In addition to our recycling and water conservation practices, we work with the community to protect the water in boreholes, existing wells and other community water supplies. One way we do this is through a community-based program: we monitor the levels and quality of water in herders' hand-dug wells, and local herders collect their own water records for comparison.
  • At QMM, we are implementing a community-centred water engagement approach focused on improving access to drinking water in Fort Dauphin. Separately, we are actively engaging with communities to explain how we use water at the mine site . In 2025, we hosted more than 1300 people at site to explain how we operate and our water management process. QMM's mobile community kiosks have reached over 900 people, providing community members with an opportunity to better understand QMM's operations, ask questions and raise concerns.
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Partnership

Our strategic water partnerships are fundamental to the effective management of water in and around our operations. We partner with many governments, communities and organisations to grow our understanding of catchment-scale water characteristics and the various uses and pressures on water resources that we share, including climate change.
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Examples:

  • In the Pilbara, Australia, we are partnering with the Western Australia Government to construct a desalination plant that will deliver 8 gigalitres of water per year to the West Pilbara Water Supply Scheme, reducing pressure on the Bungaroo and Millstream aquifers. Abstraction from these groundwater sources is of significant concern to Traditional Owner groups.
  • At Kennecott, in 2021 we partnered with several environment and water conservation organisations to donate up to 18,000 acre-feet of water rights every year for the next 10 years to return more water to the Great Salt Lake.
  • In Australia and Canada we host or participate in regional water engagement and monitoring partnerships; these include the in British Columbia; Lac Saint Jean management and the Shoreline Protection Program in Quebec; the in Queensland; and the partnership in Tasmania.

Innovation

We are focused on finding better ways to manage water more efficiently and effectively. Our water framework and strategy help us identify opportunities for improvement, and we have ongoing studies to progress our most material water challenges. We partner with research institutions and universities for innovative solutions across science, technology and engineering. 
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Examples:

  • Our Nuton venture is developing alternative technology for producing copper, using low-impact methods that also improve water efficiency - Nuton’s technology is expected to use 80% less water than traditional concentrator processing.  
  • In the Pilbara region of Australia, we are advancing Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) technology, a process for returning water to aquifers in a controlled way, such as through boreholes or infiltration galleries, to protect the ecosystems and culturally sensitive features that depend on groundwater.
  • We contribute funding to the (GDMSI), which aims to improve groundwater management, regulation and decision making through advances in groundwater modelling. 
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Transparency

We are among the most transparent in the industry regarding our water stewardship. On 22 March 2023 we disclosed our operations' surface water allocation, latest annual water usage and the associated average catchment rainfall runoff, as well as a 5-year view on historical annual water usage. The information is available through an interactive platform, searchable by location, operation or project.

With catchments recognised as a proxy for community and environment interdependencies, our disclosure is a platform to expand our foundation of trust with our stakeholders, further develop our understanding of cumulative and indirect catchment impacts and align with our commitment to the ICMM water position statement.

We are committed to building on this disclosure, including information about groundwater withdrawals and the receiving environment through our nature target program.