CEO message

Cameco can attribute much of its success to a steady and committed focus on four measures that form the foundation for all that we do: a safe, healthy and rewarding workplace, a clean environment, supportive communities and outstanding financial performance. We believe that each is essential to our success, and that together they ensure our long-term sustainability.

Tracking and reporting about our performance in each of these areas provides important information that allows us to improve. In 2011, we began to once again align our measures with the internationally recognized Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting framework. After a thorough stakeholder and materiality assessment, we identified 31 GRI 3.1 indicators that are right for Cameco. These are complemented by four corporate indicators that capture other information we believe is important to track.

Industry and outlook

The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan were extreme events with devastating consequences. The nuclear industry is applying what it learned from their impact on the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to prepare for and prevent future incidents. While short-term demand for uranium has softened in the wake of Fukushima, we believe nuclear energy will remain an important part of the energy mix for the long term. Nuclear power can generate baseload electricity with minimal air pollutants, carbon dioxide (CO₂) or other greenhouse gas emissions, and it is an affordable and sustainable source of safe, clean and reliable energy.

We are aware that our plans to increase our annual uranium production to 40 million pounds by 2018 (our Double U strategy) will increase the environmental and social impact of our operations as we expand existing facilities and develop new ones. Our energy use and GHG emissions, in particular, will continue to increase as we grow – an impact offset by the downstream benefits of using uranium to efficiently generate clean electricity.

To mitigate both present and future impacts, we have established a culture in which responsibility, accountability and sustainability guide our corporate business strategy and our day to day activities. We meet or exceed regulatory requirements everywhere we operate, and we work with people in local communities to make sure their concerns are addressed and that they also share the economic benefits of our operations.

Performance

Our performance since we last reported has been strong.

We achieved the best overall safety performance in our history in 2010 and exceeded our targets for lost-time injury frequency in 2011. This is due to a robust corrective action process, combined with daily job hazard analysis meetings at the start of each shift that deliver excellent safety performance across our operations. While there is still room for improvement, we believe we are on the right track.

There were no significant environmental or safety incidents at Cameco in the last two years. Cameco has had no serious incidents since a contamination problem was discovered at our Port Hope Conversion facility in 2007 and remediated in 2008. Although the Altona shipping incident in December 2010 attracted considerable media interest, the cargo of uranium concentrate was safely contained onboard the ship at all times and was safely and thoroughly cleaned up, with no impact to people or the environment at any time. Our Vision 2010 program is progressing in Port Hope, where we submitted the draft environmental impact statement for review by the regulators in December 2010 and have continued work on the environmental assessment, and all nine of our operating sites are now ISO 14001 certified.

We continue to proactively engage with communities near our operations and to contribute meaningfully to their well-being, with a special emphasis on empowering northern and aboriginal communities. We draw on more than 20 years' experience acquired working with aboriginal communities in northern Saskatchewan to develop respectful working relationships with the Martu in Australia and First Nations near our US and Ontario operations. We were also gold level certified for progressive aboriginal relations for the third time in 2010.

We have updated our corporate social responsibility policy, our governance ratings continue to be very strong, and we continue to be recognized as one of the top companies to work for in Canada.

I'm proud of our results and continued efforts to improve sustainable development at Cameco. It is my personal goal to make sure we maintain our focus on safety, environment and communities – empowering employees, community members and others to maximize the benefits of Cameco's economic and social contributions, and the clean energy potential of nuclear.

Tim Gitzel
President and CEO