The first public draft of a consolidated voluntary responsible mining standard, released in October, proposes what the co-creators said are an exacting set of performance requirements that will likely require effort from most miners to achieve, and an assurance process that will see mine sites’ performance assessed by an independent third party.

The consolidated standard is the collective project of four organizations: ICMM, the Mining Association of Canada (MAC), the World Gold Council (WGC) and Copper Mark, all of which began working together in late 2023 to combine their individual voluntary mining codes and standards into a unified standard for the industry.

The associations said that the consolidated standard would have the broadest coverage of any voluntary mining standard to date, with almost 100 mining companies across 600 operations and 60 countries expected to adopt it initially.

“It’s fairly uncompromising…but we don’t see that as a bad thing. I think that helps [with] the credibility of it,” said Pierre Gratton, MAC’s president and chief executive officer, in an interview with CIM Magazine. “We want it to be a rigorous standard that’s a stretch—at least in the beginning.”

Last year, the organizations shared an initial standard with two advisory groups of industry members and stakeholders for initial feedback. A revised draft was released for a 60-day public consultation in October. A shorter second consultation period is expected in 2025.

Gratton characterized the standard as a benchmarking system similar to MAC’s Towards Sustainable Mining initiative, with ICMM and the WGC’s position statements and principles fitted in. The assurance process is a combination of TSM’s and Copper Mark’s approaches, he said.

The standard draft outlines 24 performance areas for mining companies that are organized under four “pillars” of ethical business practices, worker and social safeguards, social performance and environmental stewardship.

The ethical business practices pillar covers performance areas such as responsible supply chains and community resettlement in the event of new projects or expansions; the worker and social safeguards pillar covers areas including workers’ rights, child and forced labour and emergency preparedness; stakeholder engagement, community impacts and benefits and grievance management fall under the social performance pillar; and the environmental stewardship pillar covers water, biodiversity, tailings, climate change and more.

Aidan Davy, co-chief operating officer at ICMM, said in an interview with CIM Magazine that the standard may be the first to have a substantive section dedicated to engaging with artisanal and small-scale mining operations. It also includes more fulsome expectations around responsible supply chain due diligence and pollution prevention than any of the organizations’ prior standards.

The standard draft outlines three levels of performance. Foundational practice is a “starting position” that indicates the company conforms with minimum industry standards and has made a commitment to responsible mining. Good practice indicates alignment with industry standards and international norms, frameworks and guidelines, and “is the level of performance that all responsible mining companies should eventually achieve,” the document reads. Leading practice goes beyond that to demonstrate leadership or best practice in a given performance area.

Companies that fail to meet all the criteria associated with one performance level will automatically fall to the level below.

Some stakeholders initially questioned the value of a foundational practice level, Davy said, but after seeing the draft of the standard realized that even the lowest level was a fairly high bar to clear.

Gratton said that while the hope is that all sites will eventually achieve the good practice level, it will be an ambitious target for many at first.

“To fulfill all 24 [performance areas] at a good practice level is a high bar, and for some even the foundational level will be a stretch for all 24,” he said.

Gratton noted that companies that have participated in TSM often have varying performance between their operations, and individual mine sites themselves can be strong performers in certain areas and weaker in others.

Jennifer Prospero, senior director of sustainability at Eldorado Gold Corp., sat on the industry advisory committee. She said in an interview with CIM Magazine that the company has been implementing its own global management system for years, which embedded TSM and the WGC’s responsible gold mining principles. While she said the company was not yet endorsing the consolidated standard given the ongoing consultation, she felt “what’s encompassed in the standard is what responsible producers should focus on.”

Prospero said she felt it was important to participate in the advisory group as a mid-cap producer: “It’s really going to be important that those mid-cap and smaller companies have the opportunity to engage and make sure it’s going to work for them, too. It’s not that major mining companies have it all figured out, but certainly there are different resourcing and different levels of experience with the existing four standards.”

Mohammed Ali, vice-president of sustainability and regulatory affairs at Agnico Eagle, also participated in the industry advisory group, and said in an interview with CIM Magazine that Agnico was now holding a series of meetings to understand the standard’s performance areas and how they’ll apply to the company.

He commended the work of the stakeholder advisory committee, which was comprised of Indigenous communities, non-governmental organizations, academics, environmental experts, value-chain companies and investors. The two advisory committees met twice during the initial consultation process to work through issues together. “There was a lot of work, a lot of dedication from both sides,” Ali said.

The document also outlines that the Copper Mark and its board will transition into an independent governance entity that will oversee the management and further development of the standard. The entity will be managed by a 17-member board of directors with four representatives each from mining companies, value chain companies, mining stakeholders and value chain stakeholders, with an independent chair for tie-breaking. A secretariat, accountable to the board, will deliver the entity’s strategy and objectives.

After the standard has been formalized and the governance entity has been formally established, Davy said that the other three organizations will step back from any controlling involvement in the standard.

Companies that participate in the standard will first apply to the secretariat to have their facilities assessed. The secretariat will review public sanctions lists in the company’s host and home countries, as well as in the United Kingdom, United States and European Union. Any reports of issues such as money laundering, bribery, corruption or fraud would disqualify the company from participating. The secretariat will also conduct a media scan and share any information with the assurance provider.

Companies will first assess their own performance, then have it validated by a third-party assurance provider, which will be selected from a registry of accredited providers.

Assurance providers can be individuals, teams of individuals or a whole company. Individuals must have a university degree and/or technical expertise in a subject area covered by the standard, and prior experience with external assurance of environmental or social subject matters. They must also complete a consolidated standard assurance provider training program before they can be approved, and must re-take it every three years.

Assurance providers must also be completely independent of the facilities and companies they are evaluating and cannot have been employed directly by them in the past three years.

The provider will review the company’s assessment, visit the site and conduct interviews with employees and local community members, if any wish to participate. Finalized reports will be posted online.

Gratton noted that the assurance providers will also need to submit a plan to the secretariat before commencing their assessment, which he said came from MAC’s experience with TSM. “If there’s something that a lot of standards are struggling with, it’s the consistency of the work, and so the review of the plan by the secretariat is an important front-end piece that ensures…they’re looking at all the things they need to,” he said.

Companies will need to give at least one month’s notice of the assurance provider’s visit to local communities, Gratton said. The standard also provides the opportunity for stakeholders to review how the assurance report has incorporated their feedback.

The standard secretariat will handle any disagreements between companies and their assurance providers. There will also be a grievance mechanism for communities or employees who do not agree with the report’s findings or have concerns with the process itself.