What Emerging Markets Can Teach Us About Sustainable Public Companies


Emerging markets may be viewed as followers in the sustainability movement, with the expectation of delivering through adapted frameworks and standards crafted in the Global North. This perspective overlooks an important consideration: public companies in the Global South are uniquely positioned to lead on sustainability, precisely because of the complexities we face. 

At Harmony Gold, with our deep roots in South Africa and Australasia, we are proving that sustainability drives performance. For us, it’s a business imperative - and a leadership advantage. Harmony is a gold mining specialist with a growing international copper footprint, with almost 75 years’ gold mining experience in South Africa and more than two decades operating in Papua New Guinea.

Sustainability Embedded in Business Strategy

At Harmony, we have integrated sustainability into our four strategic business pillars, ensuring it is central to our decision-making and value creation. Our Sustainability Framework aligns with global imperatives while responding directly to local challenges including energy security, land rehabilitation, water stewardship and community wellbeing.

Gold itself plays a strategic role. Nations hold gold as a reserve asset critical to monetary policy and national stability, and our operations contribute directly to economic upliftment, environmental regeneration, and local development. What’s more, the technologies and methods we use to decarbonise gold production are directly applicable to critical minerals — a key lever for the energy transition.

Circular Mining and Climate Ambition

One of the most powerful examples of innovation from constraint is Harmony’s position as the world’s largest gold tailings retreatment operator, producing 246 koz in FY24 from reprocessed legacy waste. This circular economy model turns environmental liabilities into social and financial assets, by restoring degraded land, eliminating long-term risk, and generating jobs. In doing so, we are demonstrating that sustainability is not only good practice; it’s good business.

We also have an ambitious climate ambition of net zero by 2045. Our decarbonisation roadmap includes aggressive investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. We’ve already deployed 30 MW of embedded solar PV. 100 MW solar PV is currently in construction and our future plans include a further 468 MW of solar, wind, and wheeling, plus 200 MW of short-term PPAs. With this programme, we aim to reduce emissions, as aligned to our science based targets, while saving R425 million annually from Phases I and II. This positions Harmony to be both climate resilient and cost competitive!

A Strategic Pivot into Copper

To further align with global decarbonisation trends, Harmony has made a strategic pivot into copper, a metal essential to the energy transition. We are applying the same discipline and purpose to copper as we have to gold with the recent binding agreement to acquire MAC Copper (Australia) for $1.03 billion; and our two high-potential Projects viz.; Wafi-Golpu (PNG) and Eva Copper (Australia).

The two copper projects provide a rare greenfield advantage, enabling us to co-create ESG-aligned operations from day one. As we often say:
“Producing copper responsibly is our way of shaping the decarbonised future from the ground up.”

Leading with Gender Inclusion: Women in Mining

Sustainability is also about who gets to lead and participate in shaping the future. At Harmony, we’re proud to have over 25% gender diversity at Board and EXCO level, and we are driving multiple programmes to advance Women in Mining (WiM) across all levels of our business.

We’ve formalised women-targeted development strategies including:

• Health and Safety programmes tailored for women working underground.

• Inclusive leadership culture and dedicated WiM Forums that promote peer support, advocacy, and mentorship.

• Ergonomic innovations and technologies to enable new skills development and long-term career growth.

• Gender-sensitive policies that encourage open dialogue, promote mentorship, and support women into decision-making roles.

• Pledged R1 million a year over the next three years to the national partnership established by the Minerals Council South Africa, the Gender-Based Violence and Femicide Response Fund and the National Prosecuting Authority to support victims in mining communities. 

• Established Men’s Forum to educate men on the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

We also actively support external and national structures such as WiMSA, WiM subcommittees of tripartite bodies, and industry-wide forums. Our commitment is not symbolic, rather it is structural. We are creating a climate where women are heard, supported, and advanced and where gender equity is recognised as a driver of resilience and innovation.

Lessons from the Global South

Harmony’s journey reflects broader realities about emerging market leadership:

• Innovation is born of necessity: ESG is not a reporting exercise; it's how we operate in volatile, resource-stressed contexts.

• Trust is earned locally: Our stakeholders include traditional leaders, communities, regulators, and future generations; each with a seat at the table.

• Global standards require local wisdom: Implementation of GRI; ISSB and ICMM frameworks are done with cultural sensitivity and contextual insight.

Above all, our sustainability ambitions and roadmaps are generative and drive the sustainability agenda of the business.

Conclusion: Redefining Global Leadership

The future of sustainable public companies will not be determined solely in boardrooms in London, Geneva, or New York; it is being shaped today in the towns, villages, and regions of emerging markets. Companies like Harmony are proving that purpose and performance can go hand-in-hand; that inclusion and innovation are not trade-offs, but twin engines of resilience.

At Harmony, we are driven by “Mining with Purpose”, with a values-based approach where safety is our number one value and the foundation for everything we do. This ethos underpins how we operate, how we lead, and how we partner to deliver shared value to our stakeholders for long-term impact.

As the world navigates the Just Transition, climate adaptation, and social transformation, the question is no longer whether emerging markets can catch up, but rather: What can the world learn from how we lead?

About the author

Dr Urishanie Govender is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Harmony Gold Mining Company. She has over 30 years' experience in sustainability leadership across the mining, metallurgy, cement, engineering, and public sectors. She has held senior executive and board-level roles, contributing to strategic advancements in ESG, safety, health, and risk management. Urishanie has led the integration of sustainability into corporate strategy, helping deliver business value through technology, talent development, and community investment.

She holds a PhD in Business Leadership, is a registered scientist (Pr.Sci.Nat), and has completed a postdoctoral fellowship in mining at Wits University. A published academic and frequent public speaker, she currently serves on several boards and industry associations, with a strong focus on social upliftment and sustainable impact.