The mining industry moved to put another nail in the coffin of its swashbuckling past on Monday, opening a major conference designed give it a kinder, gentler and greener face — even starting the event with an Ojibwa prayer to the new day, delivered by a member of the Mississauga Indian nation.
About 570 members of the world’s mining elite, and some of their harshest critics, started a three-day meeting in Toronto that will try to shine up what the sector now willingly admits is a tarnished social and environmental reputation. The meeting is being held ahead of the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August.
Industry executives at the Global Mining Initiative meeting include such luminaries as Sir Robert Wilson, chairman of London-based giant Rio Tinto Plc, and Noranda Inc. chairman David Kerr.
The executives went to pains to stress that the conference — and the $9-million report on sustainable mining development that is being showcased at it — are not just an exercise in public relations to take the heat off the industry at Johannesburg. More, they said, they are an exercise in industry consciousness-raising.
”The mining industry must change. The need is urgent,” Peter Woicke, executive vice-president of the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank Group told the conference.
Also becoming clear at the meeting was that the price of becoming more socially and environmentally responsible is going to be high, and will have to be spread among producers and consumers around the world.
”We all of us have benefited from metals products that are below these life-cycle costs to society in terms of extraction processing and end-of-life disposal,” said Jay Hair, secretary general of the International Council on Mining and Metals.
”And we’ve all taken that for granted — that we’ve got cheap metals. And I think it really is time that we’re saying that environmental protection and social responsibility are important, and I think we’ve got to figure out strategies to pay for that.”
So what, besides possible embarrassment at the Johannesburg meeting, is spurring the industry to try to be green instead of mean? Not surprisingly, it’s money, said Hair, an active US environmentalist before being recruited for the industry’s sustainable development project three years ago.
”Companies that don’t comply with (higher) standards are increasing their risk,” he said.
”If you’re a banker loaning money to some mining activity, some metals processing activity, you don’t want to loan to those with high risk. Those companies that really to do raise the bar, really do improve their performance, are going to do well. Those that don’t, in time, are not going to do well.”
The report presented at the conference, entitled ”Mining, Minerals and Metals for Sustainable Development” (MMSD), paints a bleak picture of mining’s history — a legacy of poorly developed mines and processing facilities that are costing the industry billions to try to fix.
In addition, there is menacing environmental threat of abandoned mines for which there is no proof of ownership and for which no one is taking responsibility.
And then there are wrecked communities.
”Africa has a history of exporting,” said South Africa’s Duma Nkosi, chairman of the MMSD assurance group. ”Slaves. minerals and timber.”
”Africa is the richest continent in natural resources and the poorest continent.”
The report, backed by 28 mining companies, sets out a series of guidelines to serve as an agenda for change and describes minimum environmental, health, safety, social and ethical standards.
It seeks a commitment to tackle past pollution hot spots and areas that would be off limits because of environmental or cultural concerns.
Acceptance of some of the recommendations will be hard-won. So will not gaining commitment in such a competitive industry.
Simon Thompson, of Anglo American Plc, presented a slide show on the Lisheen zinc mine in Ireland, developed to extremely strict community and environmental standards. The mine is a model of efficiency and care, successful in every way but money.
Unfortunately, said Thompson, zinc prices have plunged to their lowest levels since the Great Depression due to large volumes of exports from China.
”I would question whether there is a single mine in China that operates at the standards of Lisheen, Ireland,” he said. – Reuters