Corporate Governance
Skeena Resources Limited is committed to conducting its business in accordance with all applicable laws and principles of sound corporate governance.
Responsibility and oversight of ESG issues are integrated throughout the board, executive and operational levels of our Company. Our Board of Directors fulfills its mandate directly through quarterly meetings and through regular, and as-needed, meetings of the board committees. The frequency of these meetings may increase depending upon the state of the Company’s affairs and in response to changing risks and opportunities.
Our Board of Directors provides oversight for Skeena’s management of environmental and social risk, including our response to climate change. The Board monitors our progress quarterly and our 100% independent audit committee reviews our disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions, projections of future emissions, and opportunities for reduction. Our executive management team, in particular our Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Vice President of Sustainability, set the strategy for Skeena’s management of climate risks and opportunities.
Skeena’s 100% independent Nomination & Governance Committee has oversight of corporate governance policies, including our Code of Ethics and Diversity, Whistleblower and Anti-Bribery & Anti-Corruption Policies. ESG performance metrics are incorporated into the incentive bonuses of our executive management and operations teams.
We encourage open, honest communications amongst all our employees and contractors. We want people who work at Skeena to feel comfortable approaching their supervisor or manager where they believe violations of policies or standards have occurred. In situations where employees prefer to place an anonymous report in confidence, we have a third-party service, ClearView Connects, that provides anonymous reporting via phone, mail, or an anonymized web portal.
For benchmarking purposes, the Company finds it useful to make comparisons against a peer group. The Company’s peer group consits of the following companies: Argonaut Gold Inc., Artemis Gold Corp., ERO Copper Corp., Lithium Americas Corp., MAG Silver Corp., Marathon Gold Corp., Orla Mining Ltd., Osisko Mining Inc., Seabridge Gold Inc., Silvercorp Metals Inc., Silvercrest Metals Inc..
For further information about the Company’s governance practices, view Skeena’s SEDAR+ filings at www.sedarplus.ca.
ESG Governance at Skeena
Incorporation Documents
Corporate Policies
Securities Plans
Board, Committee and Position Descriptions
Human Rights and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Our projects are based in Canada where human rights are protected by provincial and federal laws aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). UNDRIP recognizes the rights of Indigenous people and requires their free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) for any activity that affects their traditional lands, territories, and natural resources. In 2019 the BC government passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) to align with and implement UNDRIP in the province. DRIPA establishes the UN Declaration as the provincial framework for reconciliation with Indigenous people, including Canada’s First Nations.
Our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics defines the standards and values we expect from our directors, officers, employees (including permanent, contract and temporary employees) and independent contractors. This includes refraining from discrimination, intimidation or harassment towards any person based on religion, race, color, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, physical or mental disability, or national or ethnic origin.
Co-Governance
Co-governance refers to forms of governance that focus on collaboration and collective decision-making. In the context of First Nations, it means nation-to-nation, government-to-government shared responsibility for resource management. In June 2022, the Tahltan Nation and the Province of British Columbia entered into the first consent-based decision-making agreement under DRIPA, which will make Eskay Creek the first mining project to have its Environmental Assessment Certificate authorized by a First Nations Government. We see this agreement as a major step toward recognizing the rights of First Nations in BC. Following this agreement, we established a permitting process charter with the Tahltan and BC government, which establishes the plan and timeline for us to collaborate on an efficient environmental assessment (EA) and permitting process for Eskay Creek. This historic agreement establishes a new framework for environmental assessment in Tahltan Territory based on the recognition of Indigenous rights and values. Our goal is to create a new model for sustainable mining with the Tahltan Nation, with world-class environmental practices and standards that will provide unprecedented business certainty around Indigenous consent over mining projects.
Business Ethics, Transparency and Anticorruption
Skeena is subject to Canada’s Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA), which aligns with the principles of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and requires we disclose any payments, in cash or in kind, to any governmental or quasi-government organization globally. We are fortunate to operate in a jurisdiction with strong governance institutions and controls against corruption. We also see the opportunity to further strengthen Transparency and Anticorruption efforts within Canada and British Columbia’s natural resource sector by fostering an inclusive and transparent process around decision-making and obtaining free, prior, and informed consent for Eskay Creek.
Our Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Policy discourages political contributions. To the extent that modest contributions are deemed appropriate by our senior management, they may only be provided in accordance with local and applicable laws, after obtaining written authorization from the CEO, and without an expectation of favourable treatment in return. We made no political contributions in 2023.
Diversity and Inclusion
We value diversity in our workforce, management team, and board of directors. We pride ourselves in our ability to include many voices and perspectives in operational and corporate decision-making. We believe that this helps us to better understand community concerns, anticipate and manage risks, and identify new opportunities to innovate and improve performance.
For more information, see our 2022 ESG report.