Hey there, welcome to The Forward! I’m Bronwyn, I spent many years leading social performance and community relations in mining, including as Head of Social Performance at Rio Tinto. Now I run Cantilever, where I advise mining and resources companies on sustainability strategy and complex stakeholder engagement.
If you want to talk about your strategy, get in touch with me here.
Read time: 4 mins
Last week we looked at Paladin’s annual report and found the information that matters most sitting in the voluntary section. This week I’ve been reading Sandfire’s new FY26 Annual Report, and I’ve gone back to the first paragraph of the sustainability section - the part describing the report boundaries.
Every sustainability report outlines its reporting boundaries. Within the boundary, data is presented, outside it is generally not. Now that climate reporting is mandatory for many large entities, a single annual report can carry more than one boundary.
This week’s question: who decides which mines go in a sustainability report?
- Bronwyn
Sandfire Resources (ASX:SFR)
Source: Sandfire Resources Annual Report 2026 (244pp) · Published 26 August 2026 · Reporting period 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 · Voluntary Sustainability Report at pages 61 to 107, prepared with reference to GRI · Climate Statement (Mandatory Sustainability Report) at pages 108 to 141, prepared under AASB S2 · Deloitte review of specified climate disclosures.
Sandfire is a Perth-based copper miner with two operating mines: MATSA in Andalusia, Spain, and Motheo in the Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana.
DeGrussa, the Western Australian mine that built the company, closed in 2023.
FY26 was a record year, with US$354 million in profit, roughly AUD$540 million.
Then there is Black Butte, in Montana, held through a Toronto-listed company that Sandfire has an 87 per cent share in. The Montana government approved the mine in 2020 and conservation groups sued shortly after. A district court cancelled the permit in 2022, and the Montana Supreme Court reinstated it in 2024, upholding the water permit in January 2025. Nearly five years back and forth over a mine that has not moved a tonne of dirt. If you’re in the resources sector, you probably won’t find that information overly surprising.
The annual report says a strategic review of Black Butte will be finished by the end of September. On 27 August, The Australian newspaper reported that Sandfire has hired RBC to sell it. So the decision is live, and the deadline is this month.
Passage 1: The sentence that draws the line
Our reporting boundary. All content and data provided refers to our fiscal year ended 30 June 2026, and includes Assets and exploration projects where we have 100 per cent ownership... Sandfire holds an 87 per cent equity stake in Sandfire America, which owns the Black Butte Project in Montana, USA and holds the right to acquire an 80 per cent interest in Kalkaroo in South Australia. As such, Black Butte and Kalkaroo are outside our sustainability reporting boundary.
Three facts in this paragraph, in order. The sustainability report covers the assets Sandfire owns outright. Sandfire owns 87 per cent of the company that owns Black Butte… so Black Butte is out.
This is a choice, and allowed under the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which asks a company to say which entities its report covers and explain any gap with the accounts, which Sandfire does. Black Butte, however, is covered in the financial statements but not in the sustainability report.
Here is what it means for you as the reader. Black Butte is the one project in Sandfire's portfolio where water was the showstopper. If you turn to the water section on page 95 hoping to understand Sandfire's water risk, you will find a good news number, a 31 per cent fall in water consumption, for the mines within the reporting boundary. You will find nothing about the company’s asset where water was arguably the biggest risk.
Plain English: The financial statements include Black Butte. The sustainability report doesn’t. Lining the two up is exactly what the global sustainability standards are trying to make possible, and here you can’t.
Passage 2: The mine that closed but stayed in the report
DeGrussa is the other end of the boundary. Sandfire owns all of it, so it is in. It has not produced since 2023 and is listed as being under care and maintenance. In November 2023 Sandfire disclosed a cultural heritage incident there, the historic disturbance of artefact scatters on Yugunga-Nya country, and commissioned an external investigation and then an independent audit.
We have now completed the majority of actions arising from all six recommendations of the Gilbert+Tobin Investigation (June 2024) and 25 recommendations and directives from the DeGrussa Independent Audit (July 2025), with the remaining items in the final stages of completion. This work has been undertaken in consultation with the Yugunga-Nya People...
The report narrative highlights six recommendations, 25 directives, a fencing programme for the places the Yugunga-Nya identified, heritage data handed back, and in March a Yugunga-Nya representative presenting the DeGrussa case study alongside Sandfire at its investor briefing. For a mine that no longer produces anything, that is a lot of report. Two years after an incident, this is what accountability looks like on the page.
Now put it next to Passage 1. DeGrussa is featured in the report. Black Butte is out. That is the thing to understand about a boundary drawn on ownership: it will always tell you more about what the company controls than about what the company is exposed to.
Plain English: DeGrussa shows what a report looks like when an asset is included. In this case, the difference between solid information and data comes down to how much of the asset the company owns.
The Frame
So, who decides which mines go in a sustainability report?
The answer? The company does, within a rule. Sandfire’s rule was ownership, and it put a closed mine in and a live one out.
Every boundary here is disclosed and every one follows a rule, so it’s not meant to be a criticism of Sandfire. Just an observation.
Two practical takeaways for anyone who reads or prepares sustainability disclosure this reporting season:
Read every boundary statement before any number, and list what each one leaves out. In an annual report there is usually more than one.
If you write these documents, reconcile the boundaries in one table. What is in, what is out, and why. Your reader should not have to find a footnote.
Glossary
Reporting boundary
The statement of which parts of a company its report covers. Sandfire’s voluntary sustainability boundary is the assets it owns outright: MATSA, Motheo and DeGrussa.
Cultural heritage incident
Damage to, or disturbance of, a place or object of significance to Traditional Owners, whether or not it was deliberate. In Western Australia these are dealt with under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 and any agreement with the native title holders. Sandfire’s DeGrussa incident, disclosed in November 2023, involved the historic disturbance of artefact scatters.
Independent audit
A review by someone outside the company of what went wrong and what must change, usually with a list of actions the company then reports against. Sandfire’s DeGrussa Independent Audit (July 2025) produced 25 recommendations and directives.
What did you think of this newsletter?
This month at CFS - cultural heritage and social risk
DeGrussa shows what two years of fixing a heritage incident looks like on the page. The cheaper version happens before the incident: knowing where the heritage is, what the agreement requires and who needs to be in the room before the ground is disturbed. That is the work Cantilever does with companies through Social Risk Assessment and cultural heritage advisory. If that is a conversation worth having, get in touch by emailing Bronwyn directly at [email protected].