A mine is a challenging environment for on-site managers, professionals and technicians, who face daunting new challenges annually - not least of which relate to complex and evolving sustainability issues that are often not part of their training in traditional disciplines. The mining sector has committed to decarbonise, for instance, as well as to manage scarce water resources, nurture the local economy, and engage constructively with communities and other stakeholders. Each of these demands impacts on the mine's executives and practitioners in different ways, requiring complex analysis and extensive engagement with peers when it comes to developing and executing solutions - peers who are often not based on the mine.
This is not the most conducive way of innovating effective strategies - irrespective of the context. We need only look at China's exponential improvements in mining, technology, transport and manufacturing in recent decades to understand the full power of critical mass, where many professionals can feed off each other to unravel tricky challenges. Collaboration is by far the more productive scenario for forging positive momentum, whether for iterative improvements or quantum leaps of discovery.
In contrast, many on-site practitioners find themselves with few locally-based experts in fields such as environmental, social, sustainability and some more niche technical disciplines. Add to this the daily pressure of operations, and the result can be a poor environment for creative progress.
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