LET’S get the obvious out of the way: is mining really changing? Or are the billions of pixels spent in lengthy exposition of ESG – environment, sustainability and governance – merely a rendition of that old chestnut: ‘When we talk environment we mean business’ (nudge, wink)?
Some think authentic change is afoot. “We see a focus on real risk management, not just legal compliance,” says James Lake, an environmental scientist who works at SRK, a Johannesburg-headquarted engineering firm. Mining firms he speaks to are no longer focusing on ‘can we get the permits?’
Investor and social pressure on mining and energy firms is immense. In recent times, mining has been one of Hollywood’s common tropes every audience could recognise and feel itself in opposition to. In Avatar, for instance, film director James Cameron’s 2019 blockbuster, the desire for the fictional rare mineral ‘unobtanium’ stands for insatiable human greed sweeping aside all regard for sanctity. In this way, mining is to the environment what Russian spies were to nuclear disarmament in a 1970s James Bond film.
Popular consciousness aside, the public sector response lately has been to hit mining where it hurts: in its pocket. “Companies that do not respond to the demands of investors will be footnotes in corporate history,” says Adam Matthews, chief responsible investment officer at the Church of England Pensions Board. The board’s Transition Pathway Initiative is supported by more than 100 investors controlling assets worth $25 trillion, so its word packs a punch.
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