Durban, South Africa: Struggling to dust off its image as a major contributor to climate change, the mining industry has received a clarion call from the global community to work smarter, cleaner and faster to mitigate its environmental impacts.
Industry executives in Durban for the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change tried valiantly to show the measures they were taking or considering to reduce their carbon footprint. But these are nowhere near what are needed, the new president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) said in an interview on the sidelines of the November 28 to December 9 conference.
Peter Bakker said there are lots of examples of companies that have made a positive impact, but he added that the sum total is not enough to reach targets, not only to head off serious climate problems, but also to eradicate poverty.
“Business must do more.”
His council is a CEO-led global coalition of approximately 200 companies advocating for progress on sustainable development.
Anthony Hodge, a former Vancouver consulting engineer who now heads the London-based International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM), said that despite progress being made, miners are still regarded as a “bunch of pariahs.”
Hodge, mining’s industry’s sustainable development steward and a former Kinross professor of mining and sustainability at Queen’s University, said historically the mining industry’s social and environmental impact has not been “a very happy story.”
He added that “a lot of the world out there believes today’s problems are due to the corporate big company monster that is raping and pillaging all across the world.”
In the face of this negativity, Hodge said the industry has never been good at telling its story. “If you focus only on the negative, you make bad decisions. You have to look at the positive; you have to look at the distribution of risk; you have to see that those people responsible for dealing with it are … held accountable.”
Hodge described his council as “change agents.” ICMM represents 21 of the world’s major mining companies, including Anglo American plc, Rio Tinto plc along with Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd. and Goldcorp Inc.
It also brings together mining associations and global commodity associations to address the core sustainable development challenges faced by the industry.
Hodge said in an interview that all company members have committed to implementing the council’s sustainability development framework and supporting position statements.
“Our companies report annually on a set of 10 principles, and the reports on their actions are independently assured by third-party assurers that are just as rigorous as an auditor that does financial statements.”
But Hodge conceded that the industry’s adoption of new technologies is moving too slow.
While the incentive to use less water and energy “is very powerful” because of their escalating costs, he said the industry needs to go beyond that “to find step changes that don’t just tweak traditional technologies but move us into new ways of mining, new equipment, new ways of refining. And that’s happening right now.”
The industry is also focused on reducing emissions from mining and processing activities.
With Earth’s population now at seven billion and growing, the demand for metals will grow. If they want to be in the game for the long term, companies have to think differently, said Andre Wilkens, CEO of diversified miner African Rainbow Minerals (JSE:ARI).
But for Tzeporah Berman, the Vancouver-based co-head of Greenpeace International’s climate and energy program, the mining industry’s steps have been merely “incremental.”
“The Canadian government needs to ensure hard caps on emissions for all industry right away.”
At the conference, Berman was handing out copies of “The Dirty Dozen in Durban.” The pamphlet accused, among others, Shell Canada president Lorraine Mitchelmore and David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, of “undermining” climate legislation in Canada.
“It is absolutely shocking and embarrassing that the Canadian government has not put in place a single policy to ensure that polluting companies have to reduce their emissions,” said Berman.
The UN’s former top climate official Yvo de Boer agreed that industry is not doing enough on the climate-control front.
“So everybody, including the mining sector, needs to do significantly more,” said de Boer, who is now special global adviser on climate change and sustainability for professional services firm KPMG.
Bakker added that Canadian consumers and businesses should not use Canadian political roadblocks as an excuse to avoid pushing for change.
“I don’t think it should be an excuse for inaction. I think it’s probably an excuse for doing even more.” •
