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##  Sustainability 

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With over a century of operating history, Teck has gained a wealth of experience that has helped to build our approach to sustainability. 

## Taking Action 

Our relationships with communities are the foundation of our work in sustainability and, over our long history, our employees have developed deep connections to the communities in which we operate. Places like Kimberley, Trail and Elkford in British Columbia grew up around our operations and, over time, employees became neighbours and neighbours became communities. Today, in communities like Andacollo in Chile, where our business activities are more recent, we are creating new relationships and working collaboratively to address local priorities. 

As we are working to achieve sustainability goals in the areas where we operate, we are also building partnerships with organizations to meet sustainability challenges at the global level. 

For example, as one of the world’s largest producers of zinc, we are working with the international community to address the global health issue of zinc deficiency in people and in agricultural soils, particularly in developing countries. 

In 2012, we worked with the Micronutrient Initiative and the Government of Canada to launch a project with the Senegal Ministry of Health to use zinc treatments to treat children with diarrhea, which kills 6,000 children under the age of five each year in Senegal. We also entered into a partnership with China’s Ministry of Agriculture to increase the use of zinc fertilizer, which can significantly improve crop health and yields in areas that have zinc-deficient soil. 

One of the biggest challenges around zinc deficiency is making people aware of the issue. We worked to raise awareness about zinc deficiency through participation in Free The Children’s We Day events in cities across Canada in 2012. These events were accompanied by an innovative social media campaign that reached over four million people around the world, building greater awareness of this critical health issue. 

As a result of the work we have undertaken, Teck was named, in January 2013, to the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations List and was the top-ranked Canadian company. Further, for the third year in a row, we were also named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, which places our sustainability performance in the top 2% of companies in the mining industry worldwide, and our environmental performance was the highest in the sector. 

## Planning for the Future 

In 2011, we launched a comprehensive sustainability strategy, setting long-term sustainability goals that stretch through to 2030 to help us to achieve our vision for sustainability in six focus areas: Our People, Community, Water, Biodiversity, Energy, and Materials Stewardship. Our focus in 2012 was on taking actions towards achieving those goals and setting out the key indicators to measure our progress. To achieve this, we identified a group of 80 people who will help lead the implementation of our strategy across Teck. 

