At Thompson Creek Metals Company, we view meeting high standards of corporate responsibility as integral to our ability to generate long-lasting shareholder value. Our focus on conducting business in a manner that ensures optimum economic returns is buttressed by our commitment to employee safety, environmental stewardship,ethical conduct, and mutually beneficial engagement with the communities where we live and work.
We are guided in these commitments at the Board level by the Environment, Health and Safety Committee. We set them out in our Corporate Responsibility Policy, our Code of Conduct and Ethics, and our environmental standards. We implement them with a dedicated management team and workforce on whose shoulders their success relies.
Over the past several years, we have made important strides forward. These include the adoption of our Corporate Responsibility Policy in 2011; the publication of the first Mt. Milligan Social Responsibility Report in 2012, as required by its Environmental Assessment Certificate; and the launch of our Company-wide corporate responsibility strategy in 2012, which will provide momentum to our efforts in the coming years.
Thompson Creek applies high environmental standards at its sites, motivated by our desire to be good stewards of the environment and the knowledge that this is essential for our success and longevity as a mining company. Reflecting this approach, we commenced development of a Company-wide environmental management system. In 2012, there were no major violations at any of our facilities. The Company also completed an external audit with no major deficiencies.
The Thompson Creek Mine continued work with three federal agencies on an Environmental Impact Statement to permit and approve the Phase 8 mine expansion and a 5,000 acre land exchange. In addition, it continued to implement Best Management Practices for sediment control to protect off-site surface waters, completed a wind fence designed to control fugitive dust emissions from the mill coarse ore stockpile, and planted 1,000 lodgepole pine trees, 700 mountain sagebrush and 400 bitterbrush seedlings as part of its reclamation efforts.