Harmony Gold Mining Hires Urishanie Govender as Chief Sustainability Officer: 4 Things to Know

Harmony Gold Mining, the largest gold mining company in South Africa, has hired Urishanie Govender as chief sustainability officer (CSO). Here are four things to know about Govender's experience and expertise, and Harmony Gold's sustainability strategy.

1. Business Focus, Scope and Scale: Harmony Gold, founded in 1950, is headquartered in Randfontein, South Africa. The company also operates in Papua New Guinea and Queensland, Australia. The company had roughly 35,000 employees as of 2023.

2. Sustainability Goals and Milestones: Harmony is striving to achieve net zero by 2045. Near term, the company wants to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 20% in 2026, and by 63% by fiscal 2036 compared to a 2021 baseline year. Among the regional efforts to note:

• South Africa: The company is striving to deliver on various solar projects, while working with suppliers to co-create a plan for their decarbonization journeys.
• Papua New Guinea: The company continues to embrace hydropower while reducing its dependency on diesel.
• Australia: The company is assessing alternative power supply options.

Harmony Gold summarizes those goals and more in a 2023 sustainability report.

3. Executive Experience: Urishanie Govender, hired as CSO in October 2024, has nearly 30 years of experience involving environmental science, sustainability and corporate leadership. She's worked in such sectors as mining, engineering and construction and public sector, Harmony Gold noted in a LinkedIn update.

Govender most recently was director of EHS and ESG for Vedanta Resources Limited. Earlier, she was group head of safety and sustainability at De Beers Group, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Meanwhile, Steenkamp plans to retire at the end of 2024 as part of an executive transition announced in 2023. It sounds like Harmony will promote an internal candidate to succeed Steenkamp as CEO, though an official announcement is still pending as of October 12, 2024.

Chief Sustainability Officers: Why Technology Partners Should Care

By 2027, 25% of Global 2000 companies will have assigned a chief sustainability officer (CSO) responsible for meeting their organization’s ESG goals and making ESG-related IT purchasing decisions, according to IDC.

The bottom line: Technology partners need to extend their sales, marketing, engagement and support strategies to successfully fulfill those CSO customer needs, Sustainable Tech Partner believes.

Note: Sustainable Tech Partner focuses mainly on sustainability in terms of IT and business operations. But within the mining sector, employee and mine safety remain major ESG focus areas for unions, staff and employers.