The Copper Mark, Mining Association of Canada, ICMM and the World Gold Council have announced that they are working toward consolidating their individual voluntary responsible mining and metals standards into a single global responsible mining standard.
“The Responsible Gold Mining Principles (RGMPs) set out an overarching framework that defines what constitutes responsible gold mining and has been widely adopted by the gold mining industry and accepted by a broad range of stakeholders. Recognizing that many of our members produce other metals as well as gold, and additionally, report across a number of different responsible mining standards and reporting frameworks, we believe that it is appropriate to explore the potential in developing a single, global framework that covers all commodities,” said David Tait, chief executive, World Gold Council.
“We strongly believe that responsible mining underpins sustained socio-economic development and therefore we support efforts to increase wider adoption of responsible mining standards.”
The process aims to take the best attributes of each organization’s standard as the foundation for developing a single standard that would be practical and implementable by any mine operator regardless of commodity, geography or size. Implementation of the standard would be overseen by an independent, multi-stakeholder governance body and a credible assurance process, both of which are to be defined and developed as part of this exercise.
The proposed standard could, at the outset, have the widest coverage of any voluntary responsible mining standard to date, with initial implementation by more than 80 mining companies with around 700 operations in almost 60 countries worldwide.
The draft standard will be shaped by wide ranging stakeholder engagement and feedback through a public consultation that is expected to launch in 2024.
Source: ICMM