Precious metal refinery and casting house publishes sustainability report -

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The Pallion group of companies – which includes ABC Refinery and Palloys – has released its annual sustainability report, which details the group’s policies and performance across environmental, community, health, and industrial standards.

Titled Considerate Precious Metals, the report was developed by the company’s Sustainability, Environment, Health & Safety Committee with oversight from the Pallion board of directors, and was prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative, an independent, international standards organisation.

David Woodford, chief commercial officer at Pallion, said, “At Pallion, the concept of sustainability is not about lip service to the market, it’s an important part of our business model.

“Producing an annual sustainability report detailing our past sustainability initiatives and our plans for future improvement supports our internal determination to produce the world’s most coveted precious metals.”

Andrew Cochineas, CEO Pallion, added, “This report evidences the collective efforts of Pallion, its clients and suppliers to sustainability initiatives over the 2021 financial year and in that regard is a true representation of our corporate ethos of partnership.

“Our hope is that continued improvement will result in collective social and commercial success.”

Notably, Pallion introduced a number of initiatives during the FY2021 financial year to improve provenance and production of precious metals.

» Download: Pallion’s 2021 Annual Report: Considerate Precious Metals

Among them was Provcheck Security Bar Technology, a supply chain tracking tool developed in partnership with Blockhead Technologies, that allows consumers to confirm the authenticity of ABC Bullion products through a mobile app.

Meanwhile, a new sintering program was introduced to reduce wastage in coin and tablet production by more than 30 per cent.

Of particular interest to jewellers utilising the company’s precious metal refining services, the report notes ABC Refinery doubled the size of its Acidless Separation System (ALS) to establish what it claims is the largest ALS refining capacity worldwide.

ALS provides “significant advantages to traditional refining techniques including inert refining emissions and significantly reduced refining time which in turn reduces energy consumption,” according to Pallion’s report, which also states that ABC Refinery is the only ALS refiner in the Southern Hemisphere.

ABC Refinery also made “significant improvements” in the recovery of metallic silver from silver chloride, a byproduct of electrolytic silver refining, and improved the extraction of residual precious metals at its sweeps treatment plant by 60 per cent through the installation of new crushing and grinding mechanisms.

Additionally, the report detailed information on Pallion’s workplace diversity, with women now comprising 42 per cent of senior management positions and 51 per cent of roles overall.

It also gave an overview of the company’s charitable initiatives – including the Tour de Cure cancer fundraiser, Act For Kids, and the Gidget Foundation – as well as support for education and training through sponsorship of the Worldskills apprentice competition and metallurgy scholarships for students at the University of New South Wales.