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Mining is an industry of extremes, with huge projects generating vast profits, that can often only function thanks to large-scale social disruption or economic damage. With this in mind, many miners face a delicate balancing act, as they try to maximise productivity and minimise damage from an industry whose very nature relies on digging material out of the ground.
Independent watchdogs play a crucial role in this balance, helping highlight the good work done by mining companies to minimise their environmental and social footprints, and also holding those slipping behind their targets to account. One such organisation is the Responsible Mining Foundation (RMF), a research organisation headquartered in Switzerland that is a firm believer in the positive economic and social benefits of mining, but that is eager to see these benefits realised in a responsible manner.
This year, the foundation published its 2020 Responsible Mining Index (RMI), its latest in a series of biannual reports that look into the sustainable practices of some of the world’s largest miners, and many of its conclusions point towards a recent trend of “SDG-washing”. This process, where miners promote their activities in relation to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), can deflect attention away from a miner’s actual impact on the world, and distort public perception of its commitment to these targets. While many of the world’s biggest miners are reviewed favourably by the 2020 RMI, the growth of SDG-washing could set a dangerous precedent for the industry. Positive trends
The report profiles the activities of 38 companies, operating 967 mine sites across 52 countries, and assigns each company a score from zero to six in six categories: economic development, business conduct, lifecycle management, community wellbeing, working conditions, and environmental responsibility. By investigating each company in relation to these specific criteria, the report aims to generate a profile of the miners’ economic, social, and environmental impacts, and assess how effectively they are achieving the sometimes disparate goals of financial success, environmental protection, and social responsibility.
Furthermore, each category is broken down into other indicators, many of which overlap with other categories. For instance, a key performance indicator for the economic development category is titled “collaborative research and development”, and assesses the effectiveness of a company’s work with a country’s research and scientific institutions, a set of programmes […]