Harmful impacts of mining: new report calls for the normalisation of prevention

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The harmful impacts of mining remain a challenge for society to acknowledge and address. Sustainability reports tend to focus on how responsible companies are at creating positive contributions and managing ESG risks. And the term ‘ESG risks’ has become a euphemism for the potential harmful impacts of mining. In the context of the energy transition, industry actors now refer to ‘green’ mining, and mining as a ‘future-enabling’ industry. Yet harmful impacts of mining persist, and it is necessary to name the risks for what they are: harmful to people, environments and economies of producing countries when prevention fails.

A new report by the Responsible Mining Foundation (RMF) calls for the normalisation of prevention of harmful impacts across the industry. Based on public domain information, Harmful Impacts of Mining: when extraction harms people, environments and economies shows that harmful impacts are not inevitable, and yet they happen across the world, not only in jurisdictions with limited regulatory oversight.