The Inner Workings of De Beers Group's Report to Society

Across the business around 4,300 hours were spent preparing for its publication. That’s almost 12 hours a day for a whole year.

Almost 50 per cent of that was my time; meaning that it has occupied a good proportion of my waking (and sleeping!) hours for the past 12 months.

During this time, 50 interviews were held with internal and external stakeholders to understand what topics they would be interested in reading about and what content we should highlight.

1,000 data points have been collected to compare against performance from previous years, provided by 50 people across every part of the world in which we operate.

From these, 350 claims have been made within the report, each of which required at least one piece of evidence as support for our assurance providers.

Added to this, the Report has been reviewed more than 100 times by people at all levels across our business.

And it will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people across the world.

So, why do we do it?

Ultimately, we see it as our responsibility to report to the societies in which we work. And the numbers behind the Report show just how importantly we take this responsibility.

It consolidates the story of what we are doing, substantiates the claims we make and provides a useful overview of our business for those who don’t have a sense of the full scope of what we do.

And it helps raise awareness of everything we are, and perhaps aren’t, doing across our business. This reflection allows us to embed sustainability even further into our work.

As we begin clocking up the hours on the next Report, take a little time to read the Report that has become a big part of my life at www.debeersgroup.com/reporttosociety.

Meanwhile, I will be catching up on around 83 days, 7 hours, and 55 minutes worth of sleep…

Letitia Weeks: Reporting and Publications Manager

About De Beers
De Beers is a member of the Anglo American plc group. Established in 1888, De Beers is the world’s leading diamond company with expertise in the exploration, mining and marketing of diamonds. Together with its joint venture partners, De Beers employs more than 20,000 people across the diamond pipeline and is the world’s largest diamond producer by value, with mining operations in Botswana, Canada, Namibia and South Africa. As part of the company’s operating philosophy, the people of De Beers are committed to ‘Building Forever’ by making a lasting contribution to the communities in which they live and work, and transforming natural resources into shared national wealth. For further information about De Beers, visit www.debeersgroup.com.

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