Environmental inspection in the Salar de Atacama

Environmental legislation in Chile is strict and establishes that the operation of a productive project, particularly those associated with mining, must be submitted to a robust Environmental Impact Assessment System, which must account for all possible impacts of an operation on the ecology and on the human population.

This process is reviewed by all relevant government agencies and is open, prior to approval or rejection, to comments from all interested parties. If finally it is considered that all the rules to function are fulfilled, rigid monitoring, mitigation and compensation systems are established, if required.

All approved projects are also continuously supervised, and the audit, if it shows deficiencies, may involve the stopping or shutting down of operations.

All information on project evaluations and monitoring is available online, on public platforms of the relevant government agencies.

SQM is dedicated to complying with the Chilean legislation and, due to its environmental commitment, applies international standard procedures.