At the Road to proEXPLO 2021 Seminar, the research manager of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining of the Sustainable Minerals Institute of the University of Queensland (Australia), Sarah Mackenzie, presented the global trends related to mining.

A fundamental issue for the expert is that exploration teams must start building a knowledge base of the social fabric and economic context; that is, it is essential to know the social context, collect data on communities, demographics, their livelihoods, their cultural practices, the resources they use and what they value, in order to measure their impacts, manage their risks and make informed decisions about the choice of methods or approaches or technologies.

The role of Social Management

"We need to think about the impacts that exploration activities and later mining could have on people, on their environment, on their lives, on their future and act. It is essential to integrate social effects into the exploration phase to ensure that damage is avoided and fair solutions are sought for all," he said.

Thus, in her lecture "Social management in mining exploration", the specialist pointed out that the first trend to analyze is governance, which she defined as the way in which rules, norms and actions are structured, maintained, regulated and accountable.

"Governance approaches are changing, trends are moving away from a linear government-led hierarchy approach to a multi-stakeholder approach where government, civil society and industry work together to develop regulations and governance mechanisms," explained Sarah Mackenzie.

She added that as people are now more involved and interconnected with each other, they expect to be able to participate in decision-making processes that affect them. "This implies greater transparency. So today we are seeing initiatives multiplying in this area, such as the extractive industries transparency initiative; and we are also seeing efforts to improve practice and increase accountability through guiding principles and standards," she said.

Sarah Mackenzie commented that the second trend refers to the increasing inequality of social conflicts. "Considering the social impacts, the human rights of local communities and the risks they run is increasingly present in our industry and that from the beginning of any project. In view of this, we must ask ourselves if we are respecting the rights of communities and if we are providing them with fair opportunities," she said.

Similarly, she stated that the mining industry is in the middle of the line of fire where the links between mining, social justice and environmental problems are established. In this regard, she added that in a context of climate change and resource scarcity, no one can ignore the environmental challenges we face.

"Exploration activities may not have a high demand for water, land-use and energy, but in the future they may and knowledge of the local situation with respect to these resources will influence the evaluation of deposits," she highlighted.

In the ESG era

During her presentation, the CSRM research executive highlighted that within these trends and implications for the mining industry there are Environmental issues; Social issues; and Governance issues (ESG).

"We are seeing that these issues are a priority for investors. They are paying more attention to these ESG players when thinking about where to place their funds," she said.

She also pointed out that the mining industry is seeing deposits that are increasingly complex and present risks related to the environment, social environment or governance.

"It was also found that an increase in the price of minerals would not be enough to mitigate these risks and that if they were not addressed, these risks would continue throughout the mine's useful life, generating negative impacts," she stated.