A new guidance document from ICMM aims to help mining companies restore and preserve biodiversity at their operations, with the ultimate goal of achieving biodiversity net gain, which means that the overall biodiversity at a mining site exceeds biodiversity losses.

The document, released on March 20, lays out a seven-step process for compa­nies to determine the baseline of biodiversity at their operations, minimize the impact of their operations on nature, monitor key biodiversity indicators and report overall progress.

“Nature loss is really staring us in the face, and there’s been so many really horrifying statistics about the decline of key species, the degradation of ecosystems. We just need to do this faster than [we have been],” said Hayley Zipp, director of ICMM’s environment program, in an interview with CIM Magazine.

The guidance is meant to help ICMM’s member companies achieve the commitments set out in the organization’s position statement on nature, which was released in January 2024. The statement committed member companies to achieve no net biodiversity loss, or achieve net biodiversity gain, at their operations by 2030, relative to either a pre-operation baseline for new operations or a pre-expansion baseline for significant expansions of operations, or to a 2020 or earlier baseline for existing operations.

The statement also commits companies to work with suppliers and customers to protect nature across their value chains; work with stakeholders to restore, conserve and regenerate shared landscapes; and advocate for broader systems change, such as by supporting research and development, biodiversity data sharing or sustainable finance.

“Meaningful action really comes when you look at what can be done at the landscape level, and how you ratchet up that action through partnerships. We need innovation, we need each and every actor to be accountable, and we need collaboration amongst a number of different players within the landscapes that are critically in need of rehabilitation, restoration and protection,” Zipp said. “That’s why our members have made these commitments to nature that we see across the board.”

Zipp said she hoped that the broader mining industry would use the guidance document and added that she sees it having applicability to other industries, such as oil and gas.

Mining operations often interact with areas of high biodiversity. An analysis by the Worldwide Fund for Nature–Norway, in collaboration with the Rainforest Foundation Norway—which used 2023 S&P Global data—found that 4.6 per cent of active mining projects globally have a “direct spatial relationship” with intact forest landscapes, 7.5 per cent have a direct spatial interaction with protected areas and around 6.2 per cent are associated with areas of global significance for biodiversity conservation. The ICMM guidance noted that those figures would be much higher if the analysis was expanded to include active mining concessions, as many of these do not advance to the development stage.

Sara Carlsén, the biodiversity coordinator for Swedish miner Boliden, told CIM Magazine that she saw ICMM’s nature commitments as ambitious but achievable. Carlsén, who was involved in the development of the ICMM nature position statement, said Boliden updated its own biodiversity and nature policy to align with the statement. Previously, the company had committed to having a net positive impact on biodiversity by 2030 at its direct operations; it has since set goals addressing the statement’s value chain, landscape and systems change commitments.

“It’s definitely going to be some work to get there, but it’s not at all impossible,” she said.

In an interview with CIM Magazine, Justina Ray, president and senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, said both the guidance and nature position statement were positive, and in particular praised the guidance’s acknowledgement that the industry has dependencies on biodiversity, such as access to clean water, and that protecting it is a business imperative.

However, she noted that achieving no net loss or net gain at the project level is dependent on many factors and players outside the company, especially the decisions of governments and other nearby landscape users.

“This kind of approach will have benefits for sure, but it’s limited in its ability to manage cumulative impacts of a lot of development in the area that may come from actors that are not them, and not even (other) mining companies,” she said, adding later that “those are not necessarily the responsibilities of individual companies. But in order to do the thing that this guidance wants to do, they’re going to need other elements [such as government regulations] that incentivize various actors to row in the same direction.”

The guidance document provides details on how to select an area of analysis to assess biodiversity risks and impacts, which it said can expand or change over the life of the operation. The geographic area should encompass the physical footprint of the mine operations and any areas that could be directly or indirectly affected by operations; nearby protected areas or internationally designated sites; and habitat ranges for species that intersect with the operation.

It also covers how to establish a biodiversity baseline. Zipp said that while there was plenty of existing guidance about establishing baselines for green-field projects and expansions, ICMM needed to fill in the gap in knowledge around setting retrospective baselines for existing operations or acquired projects that lacked historical data. It suggests a combination of any existing project data, satellite and aerial imagery, consultations with experts and stakeholders, field surveys of adjacent or similar vegetation and habitat types, and scientific modelling.

Carlsén said Boliden has been relying on historical satellite imagery, drone photography and land and habitat quality surveys where available to establish its 2020 site baselines.

The guidance also digs into quantifying biodiversity losses and gains, something that Zipp said is a particular challenge for companies. “Nature is so local. When you’ve got a company with a number of mines in different jurisdictions, across different commodities, it’s hard to set metrics that are easy to be rolled up to give a picture at the corporate level,” she said.

It explains how to select site-specific biodiversity indicators, which act as proxies for broader ecosystem health and quality. These could include the condition, extent or fragmentation of an ecosystem that supports threatened species; ecological processes important to ecosystems, such as groundwater recharge; or the population size or number of breeding pairs to monitor nearby, migratory or congregatory species.

It instructs companies to apply the mitigation hierarchy, which prioritizes avoidance measures to anticipate and prevent negative impacts on biodiversity, followed by mitigating the impacts that cannot be avoided, restoring degraded ecosystems, and finally, offsetting adverse impacts.

Ray said that the avoidance and mitigation steps have often been weakly implemented or skipped in the past, because they are “challenging to do, and you have to do them in a broader context.” However, she noted that the more restoration and offsetting work a company has to pursue, “the more you’re constrained in terms of your ability to have the outcomes you desire.”

Zipp said avoidance actions are often hard to measure, because sensitive areas are usually identified during the environmental assessment process and ruled out immediately. “The area is avoided, but it’s not documented,” she said. ICMM wanted to make avoidance actions the “standard,” she said, and was encouraging companies to explain how and why they were avoiding biodiversity impacts.