This blog is written by Sarah Gordon and Rose Clarke.
Sarah is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Satarla. She has worked in several fields including risk & assurance, safety, sustainability, R&D, business divestment, mining & exploration geology, and is now bringing them together to tackle making extraction of raw materials truly responsible.
Rose is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Leicester in the field of applied economic geology. She is also a research assistant at Satarla, working in responsible reserves and raw materials, and is co-organiser of the Responsible Raw Materials conference 2020.
Contact Rose and Sarah about this blog via Twitter @rawresponsible or via their website www.responsiblerawmaterials.com
In a rapidly changing world with increasing demand for raw materials, is it possible to make their extraction truly ‘responsible’?
Population growth, coupled with our evolving needs and desires for new technology (including technologies that we need to power the green economy) mean that society will use non-renewable natural resources for centuries to come. A circular economy of reuse and recycling is often cited as the best case scenario, but it is a leaky system and needs feeding to begin with. A transition to sustainable energy requires a greater number of, and more obscure, so-called “critical” metals than have ever been used before. Extraction of raw materials through activities such as mining is therefore crucial to society and the green transition. The key question is how do we do it with maximum benefit and minimum impact?
The negative perception of mining is a challenge for the industry. While mining activities have been undertaken and honed for thousands of years, there is still much more we can do to ensure that we mine in the most responsible manner possible, across the value chain from artisanal diggings to large-scale industrial mines. In order for mining to become truly responsible, it needs long term commitment, support and leadership from all stakeholders inclusive of mining companies, investors and regulators. To date, this has proven difficult, in part due to differing opinions on how responsibility might be interpreted, measured, and rewarded.
Attempts to bring forward responsible mining initiatives have been welcomed by all in the industry, but these frameworks have not yet provided enough practical change ‘on the ground’. By providing a way for different stakeholders to add to the conversation, we aim to produce a source of up-to-date information that can be tapped. It is hoped that this will make it possible to develop a streamlined, industry-accepted best-practice, with specific criteria and quantifiable methodology.
By bringing together various stakeholders’ definitions of responsibility, and making use of existing initiatives and policy, we aim to make it easier for everyone to apply the same definition and value to ‘responsibility’. This will help to end a perceived disconnect between civil society and mining operations and investment.
We are making the most of people now working from home by organising an online conference. The conference will pull together different perspectives from world experts across various disciplines, who together have solutions to overcome the challenge of integrating responsibility and mining. The end result will be a set of open-source video lectures, conversations and resources, which can be used to help leverage existing initiatives and policy. The conference will cover four key areas:
- Producers –Experts from industrial mining companies, service providers and research establishments. What does true responsibility across the minerals value chain look like?
- Customers – Pressure to improve also has to come from end-users and consumers. What do ethically sourcing companies want and look like? How can these changes help create a more robust supply chain?
- Investors and insurers – The finance industry has a big part to play, as demonstration of financial value will be essential. How we do put a value on responsibility, in a way that avoids green-washing investments?
- Tools and techniques – How do we shape the application of techniques from various sectors into the mining industry? Existing methods within existing frameworks in the risk management sector, as well as finance or insurance, may hold the answers.
The virtual conference will be held from 11-15th May 2020, and the schedule is set to be released on https://www.responsiblerawmaterials.com/ on Monday 4th May. The video clips and resources produced will be available on the website and our YouTube channel long after.
The conference is free to attend – but we are asking that people donate to our chosen charities (details online).
If you are interested in attending then please check out our website and sign up before the 10th May, or check out our twitter page @RawResponsible!