I toyed with the idea of theming this month’s Intelligent Miner content around building trust in the mining industry. Trust has been a hot topic in this sector for some time. I’ve watched an unbelievable number of keynote presentations at events and read more articles than I’d care to tell you about on the subject.
And, for what it’s worth, I agree with the fundamental messaging behind 99.9% of them. Yes, to overcome many of the hurdles that the mining industry faces in areas like project permitting and development, environmental and social governance, attracting talent etc., companies do need to earn the trust of stakeholders and the public at large.
But (and this is a fairly big but), trust takes time to cultivate. It takes years… decades even, of saying what you’ll do and doing what you say, even when the going gets tough. It’s a pretty lofty ask. Like saying you’ll be net zero by 2050 and not defining any interim steps and targets.
I think a more tangible ambition, one that serves as a stepping stone to trust, is social acceptance. If we must mine, then let’s do it in a way that’s palatable for those affected. Let’s define what society truly needs from mining and, in return, what the mining industry needs from society (we’ll be publishing a brilliant article exploring this during July – make sure you’re subscribed to read it), so that developments can move forward with integrity.
Let’s put in place systems and frameworks so that companies can be held accountable for the decisions they make. And let’s ensure that stakeholders, rightsholders and miners engage properly, and that everyone has a meaningful say in how operations are built and run.
All of these things, and more, are prerequisites for trust. I’d like to see companies get clearer on what trust and acceptance look like and define realistic steps and measures towards both. Skip these, and all the articles and presentations mentioned earlier are just hollow talk. They will, if we’re being frank, have quite the opposite effect to that which is intended.
Subscribe to read The Intelligent Miner during July and join the conversation.
Carly
P.S. We’ll be taking our annual summer break during August and will be back with the next newsletter in September. Have a good one and stay safe!