Konkola Copper Mines has received the quarterly Golden Ribbon award, a Partners Guide Magazine recognition for corporate firms providing leadership in specific areas of sustainable development in Zambia.

KCM has been recognized specifically for environmental stewardship which has been reinforced by the company’s pioneer project of planting elite Pongamia trees to re- vegetate tailings dump number 2. KCM has planted 2 000 Pongamia trees in partnership with Betterworld Energy (Technical partner), under this project which will refertilise the soils, while seeds from the Pongamia trees will be sued to produce bio-diesel in the long term.

General Manager Sustainability Mr Anil Tripathi was joined by Manager Corporate
Affairs Akakandelwa Mubiana to receive the award from Mr Ray Willbern, the
Commercial Director of the Partners Group, at the KCM Corporate Office in Lusaka.
The honour was conferred on KCM on 5 September 2017.

In April 2017, KCM launched the Go Green initiative which is intended to further reduce liabilities on KCM’s environmental footprint. The broad initiatives partly seek to restore Chingola town in the Copperbelt region to its past glory as the cleanest and greenest town in Zambia.

Quick facts about Pongamia trees

Pongamia is an ideal plant for recovering a variety of waste burdens such as saline soil reclamation. Pongamia brings soils back to life as the Nitrogen and Carbon feed rich soil microbial communities enabling other plants to grow on previously dead soil.

Virtually, every part of the Pongamia tree provides numerous benefits to people such as producing biodiesel. Seedcake from the trees is used to make briquettes for cooking and cattle feed after removing toxins. The slurry can be used as a fertilizer, and because the tree is repulsive to animals naturally, bio-pesticides can be made from it.