Your open access to knowledge on how to change the extractive sector towards sustainability. Navigate through the industry- and policy practices, training materials, reports, and much more.
Incident and Grievance Management is a mechanism that helps individuals and communities negatively affected by the mining operations to file complaints and to voice their concerns to the company. Incident and Grievance process ensures that possible grievances and complaints are addressed early and adequately, and all incidents investigated properly. AngloAmerican’s Social Way Policy requires all company operations to have a grievance management procedure in place.
Social and Human Rights Impact and Risk Analysis (SHIRA) is a tool developed for the identification, prioritisation, and mitigation of adverse social and human rights impacts and risks. It is to be implemented in all AngloAmerican projects across the mine life cycle to prevent and assess the negative impacts on local communities and other external stakeholders.
To better understand what issues are key to address across Europe to build Social License to Operate. Frame 1: The Company Works with the Local Community / Frame 2: Mining is Accepted and Contributes to Society / Frame 3: Social License to Operate Grounded in Effective Legislation and Regulation / Frame 4: Local Self-Determination and Partnerships / Frame 5: Self-Governing Industry
AngloAmerican’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Planning section provides guidance on how to prevent and deal with possible emergencies on mining sites. The aim of this guidance is to minimise dangerous situations in operations and to protect workers from accidents.
4E Security Management and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR) is a guidance section that gives instructions on how to avoid causing harm to external stakeholders and how to avoid conflict by public or private sector security. Essentially, AngloAmerican’s VPSHR guidance contributes to the “Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights” (VP) which was established in 2000 to guide companies in maintaining the safety and security of their operations while also respecting human rights.
The Site-Induced Migration (SIM) section explains what kind of potential impacts, risks and opportunities are associated with in-migration to and out-migration from the mining area. It also provides guidance on mitigating potential risks and negative impacts of SIM. SIM is perceived as the movement of people induced by the opportunities provided by the operations at mining sites. Closure of the mining site may likewise induce out-migration from the area.
The purpose of this section is to provide guidance on the management of cultural heritage – it identifies potential risks and impacts extractives operations might pose on cultural heritage, gives detailed requirements for a Cultural Heritage Management Plan and provides guidance on the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the agreed management measures.
AngloAmerican’s Indigenous Peoples section ensures that mining sites have tools and resources to recognise and assess management issues related specifically to mining projects and indigenous communities. It also gives guidance on how to create mutually beneficial and sustainable solutions and how to engage with local communities in a way that puts emphasis on respect for indigenous rights and their cultures.
4J Conflict Management section provides guidance on how to identify, manage and solve possible disagreements between stakeholders and the mining site.
Understanding who the stakeholders are for a project tends to be based on what people do; however, people's opinions and their decisions are largely influenced by personal values. The development of the Stakeholder Frames is intended to supplement traditional stakeholder mapping by introducing what people value when they consider granting a Social License to Operate.
NdFeB magnets need to be separated from hard disc drives and other equipment to enable further processing and several new pre-treatment options have recently been developed by private companies
While there are existing normative requirements to enable CRM (critical raw materials) recycling and ensure it is done sustainably, only if operators of WEEE (Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and batteries waste facilities comply with them will they make a difference.
To ensure the conformity of facilities with CEWASTE requirements.
PEST is a tool which helps to understand background factors which may affect or influence the operational environment of projects and looks at political, economic, socio-cultural and technological conditions to give an overview of the region of interest.
This tool addresses Social License to Operate approaches used across Europe as there is no universally accepted definition of Social License to Operate. The Social License to Operate will also look different in two places because it always depends on the given context.
The practice aims to support companies in approaching communities when starting a new project in a new area by providing a checklist to consider all relevant aspects when organizing a first meeting between the company and other stakeholders and the community.
This practices aims to support both local communities and companies to ensure that they operate responsibly. A checklist will support the government to find the right approach to address matters to both local communities and companies regarding new mining projects.
The Community-Company Vision Statement is a part of relationship-building activities that the MIREU project has developed for the Social License to Operate Toolbox. The practice provides guidance for the engagement activities companies could initiate with local communities in order to build Social License to Operate for their future activities.
Tool 3.3 in MIREU Social License to Operate Toolbox gives European governments suggestions for how they can support companies in exploration as well as in Social License to Operate activities, such as consultation and community engagement, through financial incentives. The tool is based on financial incentive arrangements in place in Canada.
Community Engagement plan is a relationship-building tool that helps companies and communities agree on the means of community engagement. The plan is meant to be a voluntarily drafted document which defines the ways in which the relationships will be established and how the engagement activities should look like. The document can be updated when relationships deepen
MIREU Tool 4.3 Grievance Mechanism provides a template for the company to follow when planning to implement grievance mechanisms for the citizens and community members affected by a mining project.
The Social License to Operate Indicators (MIREU Toolbox, Tool 4.4) is a tool measuring the societal level of Social License to Operate and is developed mainly for companies but can be useful for authorities, too. Companies sometimes struggle with knowing whether their project has actually achieved Social License to Operate within local communities. The tool helps them to: first, identify the level of Social License to Operate and then, to understand the situation more broadly on a community and societal level. For quantifying qualitative features, the project has developed a stakeholder survey and a Social License to Operate score calculation system to interpret the results.
MIREU Tool 5.1 is a Community-Company Environmental Monitoring Plan (CCEMP). It is a negotiated agreement between local communities and the mining company operating in the area. The CCEMP is a sort of a roadmap for monitoring negative environmental impacts of a mining project and it should be created in close collaboration with the local community members and other stakeholders.
This practice is a voluntary agreement which is used to strengthen already existing relationship of trust by acknowledging its commitment to the community. This civil contract is usually negotiated during the permitting process and after the EIA approval
Mines can be dangerous environments for mineworkers. "BHP’s Safety – Our Requirements" is a document that describes the most common safety risks occurring during operations, and introduces BHP’s performance requirements for safety risk management as well as process safety implementation plan to prevent accidents and mitigate safety risks in activities.
Building active water treatment units to remove harmful substances from water bodies is often not cost-effective in Arctic areas due to cold climate. There are individual passive solutions used for the purpose, but these individual solutions are often not enough to purify water sufficiently – instead, a more holistic solution combining many passive solutions is needed. The HybArkt project produces knowledge on passive hybrid purification solutions for cleaning nitrogen and heavy metals in run-off waters. It also examines how plants, fungus and bacteria adapted to harsh environmental conditions can be optimised to filter nitrogen and heavy metals found in run-off water, and furthermore, develops solutions for constructing hybrid passive treatment systems that allow year-round removal of nitrogen and heavy metals in arctic conditions.
This project addresses the recovery of metals and will develop an environmentally friendly and energy-saving bio hydrometallurgical process. It will compile both efficient metal recovery techniques and bioleaching to lower the environmental impact and cost-effectiveness. This is an important approach as Cobalt is a critical raw material in the EU and is crucial for the green transition.
This practice addresses the negative investment trends towards the mining industry. The InvestRM project will create a decision-making tool for raw materials companies and investors, mining institutes, technical universities, geological surveys, non-governmental association, the Bosnia and Herzegovina government and state institutions in order to facilitate investment in the raw material sector. The project is focused on Bosnia and Herzegovina due to its critical raw materials potential but will be fully transferable to other East and Southeast European (ESEE) countries.
Dubrovnik International ESEE Mining School (DIM ESEE) is an educational project funded by EIT Raw Materials. It responds to the demand for educational courses for raw materials professionals in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Especially, course material covering the newest development trends, tools, methodologies and innovations in extractives industry are seen as insufficient and therefore knowledge on these matters is needed. DIM-ESEE-2 (2021-2024) is continuation for the previous DIM ESEE school (2016-2020)
To test unconventional sampling methods with extremely low environmental impact.
To allow for eco-friendly, non-invasive geophysical surveys, specifically surveys that have a lower carbon footprint compared with any other existing mineral exploration technologies.
The Socio-Economic Development (SED) plan helps AngloAmerican (and other mining companies adopting this tool) to plan their activities so that their presence simultaneously improves the well-being of local communities. A well-planned and well-implemented SED improves social cohesion and living conditions in the area, supports civic engagement and contributes positively to locals’ overall quality of life.
4B Contractor Social Management is the second chapter of the AngloAmerican Social Way Toolbox’s Impact and Risk Prevention and Management section. The aim of this section is to give guidance on how to identify, control, address and mitigate potential negative impacts on local communities caused by contractor activities.
Community Health & Safety Management section provides guidance on how mining companies can prevent, identify, assess and mitigate potential health & safety impacts on communities.
The NEXT project had a work package dedicated to the Social Licence to Explore with the aim of understanding how more environmentally sensitive technologies could help further acceptance of exploration.
To understand the most crucial elements for acceptance of exploration technologies and exploration activities
There is minimal guidance on what the best approaches are in communicating with local communities
While the impacts from exploration differ significantly from mining, managing stakeholder expectations are still important.
Communication is not only about the 'how' to do things but the 'where' as well
This practice addresses the improvement of the whole mine maintenance by providing a structured and clear overview of analyzed conditions after collecting and processing machine and infrastructure data. Optimizing the entire mine maintenance will improve operational availability, efficiency and the safety of the machines, mine workings and employees.
This practice addresses mining tailings and metallurgical heaps in RIS regions and accross Europe. The extraction in these regions presents a valuable resource for the secondary raw material market in Europe but also presents a substantial risk to the environment.
This practice addresses the health and safety performance indicators recommended to be used for the purpose of benchmarking activities by International Council on Mining and Metals member companies. This document provides recommended definitions and reporting boundaries for health & safety performance indicators which need improvement.
Mining has a major impact on an economic, social, environmental and political level. Therefore, the mining industry can be a significant contributor to support communities to become more resilient and to help them navigate through across mining and other sectors.
To minimize the impact of mining operations on the environment, new ways of working are needed to transform how mining operations recover natural resources that our society depends on. One of these new technologies is the electrification of the transportation system in the mining industry. To become fossil fuel-free, Boliden for example has installed trolley assist technology at its copper mine in Sweden.
"Anglo American Social Way Toolbox Section 4F" provides guidance on how to manage land access, displacement and resettlement impacts on communities and other local livelihoods.
To more explicitly state how the Social License to Operate Guidelines can benefit communities, companies, government and civil society
To derive a consensus on a pan-European basis of what Social License to Operate is
Stakeholder Engagement Plan is a tool that combines the three key factors of stakeholder engagement; 1) the Stakeholder Analysis, 2) identification and definition of objectives and priorities, and 3) definition of roles, actions and responsibilities. This tool gives detailed guidance on how to plan the approach and implementation as well as monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities for effective stakeholder engagement processes.
This practice addresses the industry standard on tailings management as the ultimate industry goal is to achieve zero harm to people and the environment. To achieve these goals, operators need to guarantee the safety of tailing facilities and disclose relevant information for public accountability.
The ILUCIDARE Training Modules brings together research and the needs for clear and easy understandable co-creation material.