OUR PEOPLE

Equinox Gold’s greatest responsibility

Protecting the health and safety of our workforce is our greatest responsibility. We are committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for our workforce by identifying hazards and mitigating health and safety risks before accidents occur.

RESPONSIBLE MINING

Corporate Presentation Fact Sheet

A Culture of Safety, Responsibility and Inclusion

key documents & data

Equinox Gold’s culture of shared responsibility ensures team members take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of their co-workers. Our aim is to achieve zero harm. Every day starts with a safety meeting, and we ensure our workforce has the knowledge, skills and resources they need to operate safely.

Congratulations to team at our Castle Mountain Mine for winning the 2020 Chairman’s Safety Award! During 2020 Castle Mountain completed construction and commissioning and achieved production with a Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate of zero, all while managing the additional health and safety challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more about the Castle Mountain team here. Ross Beaty, Equinox Gold’s Chairman, stated: Castle Mountain is a very worthy winner for the inaugural Chairman’s Safety Award. Completing construction with no lost-time injuries or medical treatments is an outstanding achievement and a highlight for our performance as a company during 2020. The Castle Mountain team has set the benchmark for all Equinox Gold mine sites.

HEALTH & SAFETY PERFORMANCE - 2020

Equinox Gold implemented a number of important health and safety initiatives during 2020, including:
  • Developing the Equinox Gold Health & Safety Management Standards
  • Formalizing reporting guidance and requirements for all sites
  • Setting expectations for workforce behavior by adopting the Equinox Gold Life Saving Rules
  • Commencing implementation of the Towards Sustainable Mining Health & Safety protocols
  • Joining the Mine Safety Round Table to benchmark our activities and learn/share current best practices with other member companies

A key focus during 2020 was encouraging reporting of “near-miss incidents” to allow us to investigate and identify root causes that can then be mitigated. All incidents are investigated and, for significant incidents, the information is shared among all of the sites, emphasizing key learnings and mitigation strategies.

Equinox Gold’s Lost-time Injury Frequency Rate for full-year 2020 is 0.69 per million hours worked (2020 target: 0.95). The Company’s Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate for full-year 2020 is 3.67 per million hours worked (2020 target: 4.82). The Company’s 2020 targets were based on a 10% reduction of 2019 full-year results. More detailed information about Equinox Gold’s 2020 health and safety performance can be viewed here.

For 2021, Equinox Gold has set the target of achieving a Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate of 3.9 or less.

A summary of Equinox Gold’s approach to health and safety, its strategy for managing the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company’s progress during 2020 and next steps for 2021 can be found in our Responsible Mining: Commitments & Performance document.

A culture of safety

A culture of shared responsibility

A diverse workforce that reflects the regions in which we work

COVID-19 RESPONSE

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided additional challenges for health and safety staff and management. During Q2 2020 the Company started proactively testing its workforce for COVID-19, rather than testing only when an individual shows symptoms, with the objective of identifying and isolating carriers early before they spread the virus to others. All individuals who test positive, regardless of whether they show any symptoms, are isolated for two weeks and can only return to work once they have tested negative for COVID-19 and been cleared for work by a health professional. Proactive testing, enhanced health and safety measures that are described here and the Company’s “test, trace, isolate” protocol have helped the Company to reduce transmission of the COVID-19 virus as much as possible to protect both its workforce and local communities.

To aid with monitoring and tracing efforts, Equinox Gold is establishing a COVID-19 testing laboratory in the USA that has the capability to serve our USA and Mexico operations as well as our Canadian head office. The lab will be operated by a third party and will allow us to expedite the receipt of test results. The Company’s Brazil operations are being serviced by local accredited laboratories.

employment practices

Equinox Gold upholds the World Gold Council Responsible Mining Principle on Labour Rights, working to ensure our operations are free from discrimination or abusive practices and that employees and contractors are treated with respect. The Company prohibits child labor and all forms of modern slavery, including forced labor and human trafficking.

We respect the rights of all workers, including freedom of association and collective bargaining, and strive for collaborative relationships with the unions that represent our workforce in Brazil and Mexico. Collective agreements are in place at all of our sites in Brazil and Mexico. In Mexico, approximately 74% of employees are unionized. In Brazil, close to 100% of our employees are covered by collective agreements.

We strive to be an employer of choice wherever we work and offer attractive benefit packages. In Brazil, Mexico and the US our employees benefit package includes medical, life and disability insurance, as well as a pension plan. In Canada, the benefit package is similar but does not include a pension plan. In addition, employees at all of our operations and offices have variable performance-based incentive plans.

Diversity and Inclusion

Equinox Gold’s objective is to have a highly talented workforce with ethnic and gender diversity that reflects the regions and communities in which we work. We are committed to implementing practices to promote diversity and inclusion at all levels, identifying and resolving barriers to the advancement and fair treatment of women and other historically underrepresented groups in our workplaces.

We celebrated the 2021 International Women’s Day by showcasing eight of the remarkable women who work at our mines and offices. These profiles can be viewed here.

We value inclusion and diversity and regard these values as a strength to our organization. During 2020, Equinox Gold held a workshop with senior management focused on human rights and diversity to better understand our site level management approach and discuss possible paths forward to formalize our principles, procedures and policies. Equinox Gold’s objective is to have a highly talented workforce with ethnic and gender diversity that reflects the regions and communities in which we work. At the site level, we have programs in place to identify, train and hire local community members, and to provide support and training opportunities that assist local community members to advance in the company. We respect the rights of all workers, including freedom of association, and strive for collaborative relationships with our workforce and, as applicable, the unions that represent our workforce.

In 2021 we, along with a number of members of the United Nations Global Compact Canada Network, joined the United Nations Global Compact Target Gender Equality Program. At the end of this 12-month process we expect to have defined a long-term Inclusion and Diversity strategy that will improve our ability to recruit and retain the best talent, help to create a diverse workforce and reinforce our culture of inclusivity and respect.

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