Independent Assurance Statement to the Board of Directors and Stakeholders of Gold Fields Limited

ERM Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd (ERM) was engaged by Gold Fields to provide assurance in relation to selected sustainability information set out below and presented in Gold Fields' 2018 Integrated Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2018 ('the Report').

Our assurance activities

We planned and performed our work to obtain all the information and explanations that we believe were necessary to reduce the risk of material misstatement to low and therefore provide a basis for our assurance opinion. Using the ICMM Sustainable Development Framework: Assurance Procedure (2008) as a guide, a multi-disciplinary team of sustainability and assurance specialists performed the following assurance activities, including:

• Reviewing external media reporting relating to Gold Fields, peer company annual reports and industry standards to identify relevant sustainability issues in the reporting period.
• Interviews with relevant corporate level staff to understand Gold Fields' sustainability strategy, policies and management systems, including stakeholder engagement and materiality assessment.
• Interviews with a selection of staff and management, including senior executives, to gain an understanding of:
  • The status of implementation of the ICMM Sustainable Development Principles in Gold Fields' strategy and policies;
  • Gold Fields' identification and management of sustainable development risks and opportunities as determined through its review of the business and the views and expectations of its stakeholders;
  • Observation of an external stakeholder engagement meeting on material issues facing the business.
• Reviewing policies and procedures and assessing alignment with ICMM's 10 Sustainable Development Principles and other mandatory requirements set out in the ICMM's Position Statements in effect as at 31 December 2018.
• Testing the processes and systems, including internal controls, used to generate, consolidate and report the selected sustainability information.
• Reviewing the suitability of the internal reporting guidelines, including conversion factors used.
• Physical visits to interview responsible staff and verify source data and other evidence at the following sites:
  • South Deep, South Africa
  • Tarkwa, Ghana
  • Damang, Ghana
  • Granny Smith, Australia
• Virtual reviews to verify source data for the following sites:
  • Agnew, Australia
  • St Ives, Australia
  • Cerro Corona, Peru
• An analytical review of the year-end data submitted by the sites listed above, and testing of the accuracy and completeness of the consolidated 2018 Group data for the selected KPIs.
• Reviewing the presentation of information relevant to the scope of our work in the Report to ensure consistency with our findings.

Our assurance opinion

In our opinion:

• The selected sustainability performance information set out in Tables 1 and 2 for the year ended 31 December 2018 is prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the Gold Fields reporting criteria; and
• The Directors' statement in the About this Report section of the Report that Gold Fields has complied with the ICMM Sustainable Development Framework, Principles, Position Statements and reporting requirements is, in all material respects, fairly stated.

The limitations of our engagement

The reliability of the assured data is subject to inherent uncertainties given the methods for determining, calculating or estimating the underlying information. It is important to understand our assurance opinions in this context. Our independent assurance statement provides no assurance on the maintenance and integrity of the Gold Fields' website, including controls used to achieve this integrity, and in particular, whether any changes may have occurred to the information since it was first published.

Our observations

We have provided Gold Fields with a separate detailed management report. Without affecting the opinions presented above, we have the following observations:

• Following ERM's recommendation made in last year's statement for South Deep and Tarkwa mines to address deficiencies in documentation relating to safety performance information, ERM did indeed observe improvements in documentation. ERM also noted several efforts initiated by Gold Fields during 2018 to mitigate employee health and safety risks and improve safety performance. We strongly encourage Gold Fields to continue its programme of strengthening its safety culture through these efforts.
• We observed considerable efforts to reduce energy consumption through energy savings initiatives implemented across the Group, notably in the Australia and West Africa regions. In addition, in response to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations, Gold Fields has begun to evaluate the financial risks and opportunities for its business. We encourage Gold Fields to continue its efforts in this regard and in reducing the carbon intensity of its operations.
• Regarding socio-economic development spend information, consistent with last year's observations; an opportunity for improvement exists in the Australia region in structuring and formalising a process for consolidating and reporting its social performance data.

ERM Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, Johannesburg, South Africa
www.erm.com
Email: donald.gibson@erm.com

ERM Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd and ERM Certification and Verification Services (CVS) are members of the ERM Group. Our work complies with the requirements of ERM's Global Code of Business Conduct and Ethics (available at https://erm.com/global-code). Further, ERM CVS is accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service and our operating system is designed to comply with ISO 17021:2011. Our processes are also designed and implemented to ensure that the work we undertake with clients is free from bias and conflict of interest (refer to both the abovementioned Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and the ERM CVS Independence and Impartiality Policy available at http://www.ermcvs.com/our-services/policies/independence/). The ERM and ERM CVS staff that have undertaken work on this assurance engagement provide no consultancy related services to Gold Fields in any respect related to the subject matter assured.