Table of Contents 6 2012 OVATION Awards Winning Entries

OVATION Awards Winning Entry
Communication Skills
Publications
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
Entrant’s Name: Stuart Weinberg, Manager, Communications Responsible Mining
Organization: Barrick Gold Corporation
Title of Entry: Barrick Beyond Borders Magazine
Division/Category: 2. Communication Skills 15.Publications
Time Period: March 2011 – January 2012 (*Note that all writing, production and printing of the three issues
included in this nomination occurred in 2011. The final issue was mailed the first week of 2012.)
Description: Beyond Borders is an external publication designed to provide governments, non‐governmental
organizations, and other key stakeholders with detailed and timely information about Barrick’s social and environmental
initiatives.
Business Need/Opportunity
Barrick Gold Corporation is the world’s largest gold mining company, with 25,000 employees, 26
operating mines and nine development projects. Headquartered in Toronto, the company’s operations
encompass five continents and eleven countries, many of which are developing nations coping with
complex social and economic challenges.
One of the company’s overriding commitments, enshrined in its corporate social responsibility (CSR)
charter, is to make a positive difference in the communities surrounding its operations. To that end,
Barrick has developed a world‐class CSR program that includes numerous community‐development
initiatives and projects that support education, health care, the environment and sustainable economic
development, among other things. Many of these projects involve partnerships with respected
government and non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), including the U.S. Agency for International
Development and World Vision.
However, the company’s CSR efforts are often overshadowed or ignored because Barrick ‐‐ by dint of its
size and extensive presence in complex regions ‐‐ is a frequent target of anti‐mining and antiglobalization
groups. Inaccurate information and unfounded allegations about Barrick’s practices are a
common occurrence. And with the proliferation of social networking and global reach of the Internet,
misinformation about Barrick can spread rapidly, harming the company’s reputation.
Barrick recognized the need to create a direct channel to stakeholders that would allow it to deliver
unfiltered information about its social and environmental performance, and the resulting benefits. In
late 2007, the company developed a concept for a new print publication to serve as such a channel. The
publication was named Beyond Borders to signify its global content and underscore Barrick’s intent to
set the highest standards in responsible mining worldwide.
In the intervening years, Barrick’s CSR program has grown substantially, as have stakeholder demands
for information and transparency. To keep pace, Beyond Borders needed to expand into a full‐fledged
magazine large enough to produce stories about the numerous CSR initiatives in all four of Barrick’s
business regions. At the same time, these stories needed to be substantive features that addressed
complex issues, such as climate change, public‐private sector collaborations and indigenous and gender
issues, in a manner that our stakeholders were expecting.