Alrosa developing standard for responsible diamond mining with African partners

BAKU. Nov 22 (Interfax) - Alrosa , the world's largest diamond miner by output and reserves, is developing and testing a new standard for responsible diamond mining with African partners, the Russian company's deputy head of international cooperation, Natalya Zhulina said.

"We're participating in the creation and testing of a new standard for responsible diamond mining together with our African partners. Why is this important? We see many standards aimed at preparing reporting in the area of sustainable development, but from our point of view as practitioners, for us it's important to have some sort of guide, standard aimed at process regulation. We're participating in the development of a mechanism that takes into account our industry particulars - large-scale mining, small-scale mining and trading of rough diamonds," Zhulina said during a session at the Russian pavilion at the UN COP29 climate conference in Baku.

She said Russian businesses can and should participate in developing mechanism for industry self-regulation.

"I think every industry has the ability to bring such specific elements that would reflect the particulars of its operating processes. This is important at the international level, because Russian businesses have fairly good experience in the area of sustainable development that they could strengthen with international partners by creating such institutions of inter-sectoral regulation," Zhulina said.

She also said Alrosa plans to adopt a new sustainable development strategy to 2030 before the end of this year.

"We're also leaving in it all key priorities and goals that touch on the climate and environmental agendas and, of course, the social agenda that has an impact on the regions," Zhulina said.

Alrosa's mining operations, which are located in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and Arkhangelsk Region, including 10 kimberlite pipes and 14 alluvial diamond deposits.