Donor network and platform Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative (TAI) has published a report that challenges the assumption that deregulation will accelerate critical minerals development.

As governments race to secure the minerals needed for renewable energy, electric vehicles and other emerging technologies, TAI is of the view that procedural fairness, effective regulation, environmental stewardship and meaningful community participation are among the most important drivers of public trust in mining.

That trust, the report concludes, is essential to preventing the conflicts, legal challenges and regulatory disputes that can delay projects for years and cost companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The critical minerals debate has become trapped in an adversarial loop,” says TAI independent consultant Sefton Darby, adding that governments and industry often treat community engagement and regulation as obstacles to speed, while communities are expected to accept greater risks in the name of the energy transition.

"But when people have a meaningful voice, confidence in oversight and assurance that environmental and social concerns will be addressed, problems can be identified earlier and resolved before they escalate into opposition, litigation and costly delays."

TAI's 'Mined the Gaps: Trust and Critical Minerals' report also calls for greater precision about which minerals are genuinely necessary for the energy transition.

The report finds that about 60% of the minerals included on major critical minerals lists in the EU, US and Australia have no direct energy-transition use case.

Some are classified as critical because of their importance to defence, domestic industry or geopolitical competition, particularly concerns about China’s dominant role in mineral processing and refining.

Combining these different priorities under the broad banner of “critical minerals”, the report warns, can result in environmental, development and philanthropic initiatives inadvertently supporting defence or trade agendas rather than the transition to clean energy.

Among the report’s key findings, survey research from Australia, Canada and mining communities around the world consistently identifies procedural fairness, confidence in oversight and effective environmental management as leading drivers of public acceptance.

The report also challenges the heavy policy emphasis on developing new “greenfield” mines. In the near term, much of the growth in mineral supply is expected to come from expansions of existing “brownfield” operations, where longstanding patterns of community engagement, environmental impact and benefit distribution may already be difficult to change.

For new projects, TAI explains, many of the most serious risks emerge long before a company applies for a mining permit.

"Exploration is often led by small, undercapitalised junior mining companies focused primarily on identifying geological resources, with limited funding, incentives or regulatory obligations to address environmental and social concerns. By the time a larger company takes over, those problems may already be deeply embedded," TAI states.

The report also cautions against treating financial benefits as a substitute for trust. It says communities care about receiving a fair share of a project’s benefits, but the research suggests that having a meaningful voice, confidence in regulation and assurance that environmental impacts will be addressed often matter more.

“Meeting the world’s clean energy needs will require more than increasing the supply of minerals. It will require changing the way governments, companies and funders work with the people who live alongside mining operations,” says TAI executive director Michael Jarvis. 

“This report shows that trust and accountability are not peripheral social considerations. They are fundamental to whether projects succeed. A transition that ignores community rights will not only be unjust; it will also be slower, more expensive and less sustainable.”

NEW MODEL PROPOSED

The report proposes the creation of an Adaptive Governance Partnership, or AGP, an experimental model that would bring together regulators, mining companies and community representatives to make decisions continuously throughout the lifecycle of a project.

Rather than concentrating community consultation and regulatory scrutiny into a single, high-stakes permitting process, an AGP would allow environmental, social and cultural concerns to be identified and addressed as exploration proceeds, deposits are confirmed and expansion plans are developed.

Embedding community participation and regulatory oversight from exploration through mine closure could reduce the risk that unresolved concerns develop into prolonged opposition later in the process, TAI says.

The report recommends testing the approach through a specific mining project in a jurisdiction with a regulator willing to experiment, identifying Australia and Canada as possible locations for an initial pilot.

The report also recommends that funders and organisations working on critical minerals focus programmes specifically on minerals that are necessary for the energy transition; support efforts to restore trust and stability in the global trading system rather than intensifying resource nationalism; invest in improving how major mining companies engage with communities and regulators; develop and test AGPs; and consider investing directly in a new model of junior mining company that links exploration funding to meaningful environmental and social programmes.

“The fastest project is not necessarily the one with the fewest rules and regulation. It is the one that identifies risks early, gives communities a genuine role in decisions and creates confidence that commitments will be honoured throughout the life of the mine. Fairness and speed are not competing objectives. Done properly, each makes the other possible," Darby concludes.