Environment

Environment

The Company continuously measures the impact its activities are having on the local environment, ensuring that it adheres to all local and international regulatory requirements as well as seeking to adapt thebusiness to reduce the overall environmental impact of its operations.

In addition to compliance with national mining and environmental legislation, Chaarat is committed to meeting the expectations of good international industry practice, including recommendations set out by the IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability.

Kyrgzstan

The Tulkubash Project is based on international industry-standard practices and is supported by Kyrgyz and international standard ESIAs. Its design also follows International Cyanide Management Code guidelines.

The environmental priorities of the Company are:

• Reduction of emissions and decrease of waste generation
• Reducing consumption of environmental resources
• Study and implementation of the best international practice
• Conservation of biodiversity
• Greenhouse gas emission control
• Continuous improvement of current Environmental Management System pursuant to the ISO 14001:2015 standard requirement

Water Conservation

The main strategy of the company to preserve water basins is to ensure maximum water reuse aimed at reducing water resources consumption, and emissions. When it comes to utilization of water resources, as well as discharges into water basins, the Company is guided by water usage permit norms stipulated by the RA Legislation statutory regulations granted to the Company.

The company constantly implements the following activities aimed at water management system improvement:

• Decreasing the process water consumption and improving water management system
  • Use of tailing dump discharge water in technological process,
  • On site cleaning and reuse of mine waters in the technological process
  • Reuse of infiltration waters in technological process
• Mechanical and adsorption cleaning of wastewaters before discharging to water basin and their monitoring:
  • Periodical monitoring of discharge point
  • Periodical monitoring of discharge point of target area – Norashenik river
  • Monitoring of surface and underground waters of possible target areas of water basins
• Study and introduction best practice for waste water cleaning

Air Protection

As to the atmospheric air pollution the main goal of the company is to reduce the amount of pollutants (dust and other gases) in gas emissions. The company constantly implements the following activities aimed at improving emissions into the atmosphere:

• Dust-collecting stations installed on ventilation system in the crushing section
• Study of the best practice to reduce dust sources in outdoor areas and taking relevant measures
• Monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions and development of mitigation measures
• Monitoring of air quality on-site and off-site , in the possible impact zone

Waste Management

The Company acts based on the RA legislation regulating this specific area and its own waste management internal procedures to reduce the possibility of environmental pollution from production and consumption waste.

The company constantly implements the following activities aimed at improving waste management:

• Sorted accumulation of waste and delivery to licenced companies for processing
• Locating the waste rocks in the underground mine and use for construction purposes
• Accumulation of tails generated in the enrichment process in the tailings dump and strict monitoring of the tailings dump exploitation
• Monitoring of waste generation, location, temporary storage and delivery

Environmental Quality Control

The Company is aware of its liability for possible impact on the environment. It conducts environmental monitoring and assessment of the received results and is always ready to take measures to reduce the impact.

The monitoring includes the following areas:

• Monitoring of surface and underground waters of water basins with potential impact,
• Monitoring of air basins in potential impact areas,
• Monitoring of soil quality in potential impact areas,
• Monitoring of biodiversity in potential impact areas,
• Monitoring of noise level in potential impact areas.

Environmental Management System

The Environmental Management System (EMS) implemented in the Company is intended to research and analyze any environmental detriment caused by the Company. The Company working principles stated below help reduce the environmental issues:

• To focus on serious environmental issues without disregarding potential risks of minor environmental issues,
• Detailed environmental management plan, to address the key environmental issues,
• Continuous development of environmental measures and activities, which will be included in the environmental management plan.