Mapping Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals An Atlas

Integrate SDG12 into core business
Minimizing mine inputs and waste.
Sustainable mining entails minimizing inputs of water,
energy, land, chemicals and other materials, as well as
outputs of waste, effluent and emissions. Mining
companies already have clear economic incentives to
minimize inputs and are working on efficient blasting,
new fuels for mobile fleets, reduced energy for
processing and recycled process water. Managing
outputs, particularly rock waste, requires new
approaches that extract more value from less rock,
leave more waste in the ground, and find creative uses
for remaining waste and overburden. In the future, the
social licence to operate will be given to companies
that can demonstrate maximum efficiency and
minimum impact and hence the most value for all
involved from the mine to the products. Increased
recycling of materials in the value chain and from final
products will enhance the connection between
producer, materials and products, allowing easier lifecycle
sustainability analysis for customers.
Implementing the environmentally sound
management of chemicals and all wastes
throughout their life cycle.
Mining companies can continue to strengthen their
efforts to improve responsible management and
minimize risks associated with chemicals they produce
or use by working across the value chain and with
other stakeholders. Some in the mining industry have
recognized that many metals and minerals are
classified and regulated as hazardous chemicals and
that the responsible management of these mined
products throughout the life cycle (sourcing, transport,
storage, use and production), including managing
occupational health and environmental risks, is a key
aspect of responsible materials management. 96
Companies can work with experts and partners to
ensure that waste management strategies eliminate
risk to local communities.
Moving away from extraction only.
The progressive depletion of easily extractable resource
deposits will drive prices upwards and catalyse
innovation in new technologies for the extraction of less
accessible deposits, while encouraging recycling and/or
substitution using different materials. The latter two
options reflect business opportunities for mining
companies to integrate down the supply chain and
become materials companies or conversely for
technology companies reliant on specific materials to
move up the value chain to secure supply. The recycling
of base metals is already significant and growing, but
more needs to be done with regard to minor metals,
which have recently seen important growth in demand.
Much of the mining industry is focused on extracting
more value from existing operations rather than building
new ones, but as long as the population and prosperity
grow, new mines along with more recycling will be
needed. While the timing of these changes is difficult to
predict, the resultant structural changes in resource
supply may be considerable.
Implementing responsible sourcing.
Mining companies can integrate environmental and
social considerations and requirements into their
procurement processes. Establishing criteria in addition
to quality and cost helps drive improved performance at
the production end of the value chain. The mining
industry has a practice of incorporating safety and
community engagement requirements into contracts with
direct suppliers and contractors. This practice can be
extended across the value chain and across the inputs
and services purchased by the company.
Collaborate and leverage
Sustainable production and consumption requires
collaboration between producer and end user across
the supply chain to identify efficiencies, improve
sustainable consumption and provide end users with
information about the origin of the raw materials and
products they use.
Collaborating to establish codes of conduct and
sourcing principles.
The Responsible Jewellery Council’s Code of Practices
Certification and the International Cyanide
Management Code are examples of industry
collaboration to establish codes of best practice across
the mining value chain. Conflict minerals sourcing
criteria is a responsible sourcing approach that directly
impacts the business of mining.
Case studies and initiatives
Zero-waste mining: Canada.
The Canada Mining Innovation Council has launched a
programme called Towards Zero Waste that has support
from major mining companies. The programme is a
collaboration between industry, universities and
government. Its goal is to move to net zero waste from
mining and minerals processing in the next 10 to 20 years,
through a combination of more efficiently defining new ore
discoveries, improving in situ mining techniques that
minimize waste, implementing closed-system processing
that reduces water and energy waste and refining tailings
into a benign and saleable product. 97
Transforming waste into resources: European Union,
United States.
In 2014, more than 40% of Imerys’ 318,000 tons of
industrial waste was recycled. Almost all (99%) of this
waste is non-hazardous. The European facilities have set
the standard since the EU directive on mining waste
management in 2011 – 15 material recycling and waste
reduction projects were entered for the 2014 Sustainable
Development Challenge. 98 In its US operations, a
Carbonates site took the initiative of transforming 800,000
tons of Hi-Cal sand into a marketable product for asphalt
shingle makers. The project recycled materials recovered
from customers’ furnaces – including steel, cement and
glass works – that were previously treated as industrial
waste. 99
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