Mining and sustainability: the people impacts Speaker: Sarah Best, Senior Researcher, IIED Mining On Top: Africa - London Summit 25-26 Jun 2013 | London

1. MMSD+10: Reflecting on a
decade of mining and
sustainable development
Mining on Top Conference, June 2013
Sarah Best
International Institute for Environment and Development

2. What have been the achievements?
Understanding of
• Sustainable development
• Good practice
ICMM
International initiatives and standards
Reflected in organisational policies

3. What are the ongoing challenges?
Putting good intentions into practice
 Inconsistency across the private sector (juniors and mid tier)
 Little supply chain focus
 Artisanal and small scale mining still neglected
 Complexity of local realities and social issues
 Government lack capacity
No follow up to the MMSD process

4. What does the agenda look like now?
 Increased societal expectations
 Rise of “resource nationalism”
 Growth of emerging markets
 The human rights agenda and FPIC
 Climate change and resource pressures water, energy
The context has changed…
… added to the ongoing challenges of the last 10 years

5. What is needed now?
 Translate global standards into local action
 Understand the impacts of mining company policy at the mine site
 Monitor improvements (with baseline data) to produce independent
and authoritative information
 Improve performance of junior mining companies
 Collective action for artisanal mining
 Progress on capacity building for governments
 Improved dialogue on mineral developments
This is the decade of implementation…

6. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!
Sarah Best
Senior Researcher
Sarah.best@iied.org
Abbi Buxton
Researcher
abbi.buxton@iied.org
Steve Bass
Group Head,
Sustainable Markets
Steve.bass@iied.org