Mr. Peter Sinclair reports

BARRICK 2015 RESPONSIBILITY REPORT NOW AVAILABLE

Barrick Gold Corp. has published its 2015 responsibility report, which provides a detailed and candid look at the company's environmental and social performance. The full report is available on Barrick's website. All amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars.

"In many respects 2015 was a transformational year at Barrick," says Peter Sinclair, chief sustainability officer. "However, what has remained unchanged is our belief that mining can provide real opportunities to generate value, everywhere we operate. In our view, this is best achieved through partnerships -- with host countries and communities, our employees, and others -- so we can all advance together."

Advancing with countries and communities

The metal that Barrick extracts belongs to the nations where the company operates and their people. This means the company succeeds only if it is partners in developing these resources for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders.

• In 2015, the company invested more than $6.4-billion in the national economies of the nine countries where it operates. This included nearly $1.2-billion in goods and services from local suppliers, more than $790-million in taxes and royalties, approximately $37-million in direct contributions in local communities, and nearly 1,000 scholarships to local students.
• Local employment is one of the more tangible and significant ways Barrick contributes to social and economic development. In 2015, more than 96 per cent of Barrick employees were nationals of the countries where it operates, and 64 per cent came from the local areas near its mines.

Advancing environmental management

Barrick knows that its role in society cannot be just about maximizing financial benefits. Barrick must also manage the impacts that its operations can have on the environment, including on land, air and water resources.

• Barrick continues to manage water as a vital, shared resource everywhere it operates. This includes water recycling, zero-discharge programs, community water monitoring and the use of non-potable water sources where available. In 2015, 62 per cent of the water Barrick used was recycled, and half its sites did not discharge water to the environment. As part of a continuing effort to improve site water management and minimize water-related risks, Barrick updated its water conservation standard in 2015.
• Barrick also understands the important link between its energy use and climate change, and has made progress in its five-year energy management program. In 2015, the company decreased energy use and reduced energy costs by 30 per cent from its 2014 baseline. It also increased its use of renewable energy: 18 per cent of its electrical power was sourced from renewables in 2015, up from 15 per cent in 2014.
• Barrick did not live up to its stakeholders' expectations when a solution spill occurred at its Veladero mine in September, 2015. Although independent monitoring continues to confirm that the incident did not pose any risks to the health of communities or the environment downstream from the mine, as a company, it disappointed many of its stakeholders, especially its government and community partners in San Juan province, Argentina.

Advancing with people

Barrick's employees -- more than 14,000 of them -- are at the heart of its ability to transform gold resources into shared prosperity. The company knows its people want to be a part of change, a part of something bigger. Its goal is to provide them with that opportunity, always putting their safety first.

• A perfect example of this is what its people have done at the Goldstrike mine in Nevada: being the first company in the Western world to successfully produce gold using calcium thiosulphate leaching, rather than cyanide. Two decades in the making, this innovation brought together the best and brightest of the company's environmental, energy, processing and engineering talents. The result is a convergence of business and environmental interests.
• Last year, a culture of teamwork and courageous safety leadership, "Courage to Care," contributed to a 10-year trend of improving the company's total reportable injury frequency rate (TRIFR). Since 2005, there has been an 84-per-cent improvement in the TRIFR, from 2.79 to 0.46. This performance was tragically overshadowed by three fatalities in 2015. The company pledges to redouble its efforts to live up to its safety vision of every person going home safe and healthy every day.

Advancing through collaboration

In today's complex operating and social environment, it is more critical than ever for the company to work together with coalitions of diverse individuals and sectors.

Barrick plays an active role in important multistakeholder groups, including the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Devonshire Initiative, and the UN Global Compact, among others.

While work remains, Barrick's efforts in mining responsibly are being acknowledged externally. In 2015, Barrick was listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the eighth consecutive year, receiving gold class for its sector; and the CDP named Barrick to the Canada Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index. Barrick was also included in the Euronext Vigeo World 120 Index for the first time in early 2016. This index distinguishes the 120 most advanced companies from Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region for their environmental, social and governance performance.

Barrick's complete 2015 responsibility report is available on the company's website.