Bettercoal suspends activities in Russia with immediate effect

28 April 2022

Bettercoal is deeply concerned about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing
conflict and humanitarian crisis. Our thoughts and hearts are with the victims and
refugees in this conflict, and with our colleagues, families and friends who have been
directly affected.

While we remain committed to our global mission of promoting continuous
improvement in the sustainability performance of the mining and sourcing of coal, the
conflict in Ukraine has meant we have had to carefully consider our engagement in
Russia.

The actions of Russia in Ukraine and resulting human rights violations go against our
core values and principles and we have therefore taken the decision to suspend
Bettercoal’s activities in Russia with immediate effect.

We encourage the Russian producers that have been assessed by Bettercoal to
continue to independently work to make progress against their ‘Continuous
Improvement Plans’ and to maintain their efforts to raise standards throughout their
operations. However, Bettercoal’s third-party assessors will stop reviewing progress of
Russian producers and Bettercoal will pause its engagement. While our activities are
suspended in Russia, this also means that Russian producers will not be able to make
any claims attached to Bettercoal.

We affirm our support for the current measures which have been deemed necessary by
the global community and will continue to monitor any developments closely in the
coming months and respond appropriately.

We join the global community in calling for the end to violent conflict and suffering in
Ukraine and around the world.

We welcome feedback at info@bettercoal.org