Like all New Zealanders, WMS Group take its kaitiaki (guardianship) role seriously.

Illustration showing land from start to finish in a sustainable way

Careful land use

The overall long-term sustainability of our venture is heavily dependent on the quality of the post-mining landscape of our sites. Much of the mineral sand is under productive farmland, and we have a responsibility to the landowners, the local authorities, and the West Coast community to ensure it is returned to a similar or better state.

We are working with environmental experts to ensure the land is restored to a level suitable for is intended use. The mineral sands are relatively close to the surface and approximately 80% of what is removed is returned to the ground and rehabilitated for future use. The resulting landforms will be similar in nature to what exists currently, with pasture established in similar or better state than what currently exists. This is nothing new – mineral sand mines globally have been returned to a variety of land uses including agricultural grazing, forestry, native bush and wetlands.

Low emissions

What gets measured gets managed. We take our duty to monitor our carbon footprint seriously and we are constantly looking for ways to reduce emissions in our business and our supply chain.

We have converted our processing facility at Cape Foulwind to run on electricity sourced from New Zealand’s 87 percent renewable energy network, saving 500,000 litres of diesel annually. We are exploring alternatives to diesel-fuelled trucks to move our product from site to port. All of our production and logistics operations are planned with careful consideration for our neighbours.
Our motorised barge will deliver our product from local ports direct to sea-going bulk carriers, reducing our reliance on road transport to get our product to our international customers. Our experts tell us a tonne of cargo moved by our barge will create only 33 percent of the emissions of moving the same volume by road.

PWC Decarbonisation Report Our ESG Policy

Seal colony which is local to the WMS mine site

Caring for our local habitat

We are lucky enough to live and work so close to the magnificent coastline which gives our region its name. But we’re well aware it’s not just our home and we consider it our duty to protect the wildlife around us through thoughtful planning of our sites and monitoring in our day-to-day operations.

The West Coast is home to kororā or little blue penguins. We consulted with experts and brought in a penguin-tracking dog to help us identify where penguins are nesting and to help us understand their movements. As a result, we altered our traffic management plan to ensure our trucks were not travelling either side of dusk or dawn to avoid disrupting kororā and their migration patterns.