International Institute for Environment and Development 
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| International Institute for Environment and Development |
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Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development
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The Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) Project conducted two years of research, analysis, and consultation. This Introduction describes what the project set out to do and the process that evolved to accomplish those goals. The Context In the past decade, the mining and minerals industry has come under tremendous pressure to improve its social, developmental, and environmental performance. Like other parts of the corporate world, companies are more routinely expected to perform to ever higher standards of behaviour, going well beyond achieving the best rate of return for shareholders. They are also increasingly being asked to be more transparent and subject to third-party audit or review. In response, a number of companies, either independently or with other actors, are establishing ‘voluntary standards’ that often go beyond any law. But even so, some observers remain suspect that many businesses are merely engaging in public relations exercises and doubt their sincerity. In particular, the industry has been failing to convince some of its constituencies and stakeholders that it necessarily has the ‘social licence to operate’ in many areas of the world. Despite the industry’s undoubted importance in meeting the need for minerals and its significant contributions to economic and social development, concerns about aspects of its performance prevail. Mining, refining, and the use and disposal of minerals have in some instances led to significant local environmental and social damage. It is not always clear that mining brings economic and social benefits to the host countries, as the minerals sector sometimes operates where there is poor governance, including corruption, and is thus associated with it. In some cases, communities and indigenous groups near or around mines allege human rights abuses. The litany of concerns is long. Project Origins
Against this background, and with the tenth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit in mind, in late 1998 nine of the largest mining companies decided to embark on a new initiative intended to achieve a serious change in the way industry approached today’s problems.They called this the Global Mining Initiative. It included a program of internal reform, a review of the various associations they belonged to, and a rigorous study of the societal issues they had to face. Through the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), they commissioned IIED to undertake a scoping study in May 1999 to set out the global challenge of sustainable development facing the mining sector and to propose the scope of a two-year process of participatory analysis to explore the role of the sector in the transition to sustainable development.
A team of IIED researchers reviewed existing initiatives and materials, and consulted over 150 separate individuals and organizations to understand their views of how the minerals sector’s contribution to sustainable development could be improved and to develop a more detailed framework for the process. The Mining and Energy Research Network (MERN) held an experts meeting to review the findings. There were few precedents to go by.The nearest was a project on the paper sector, conducted by IIED in partnership with the WBCSD in the mid-1990s. There was also the comprehensive study of large dams, but it was conducted by a World Commission and at the time was just getting under way. While various ‘multistakeholder’ processes had been attempted, most were not convened on such a scale. IIED published its results in October 1999, making recommendations for the design and scope of the process that became known as the MMSD Project. Visit the project pages to find out more and view the project reports Copyright © 2005 International Institute for Environment and Development. |
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