The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) has published a series of equivalency benchmarks to assist in addressing stakeholder concerns around responsible production, and the recent proliferation of sustainability standards.

The benchmarks compare the requirements of ICMM’s mining principles with the World Gold Council’s responsible gold mining principles (RGMPs), the Mining Association of Canada’s towards sustainable mining (TSM) programme, the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), the Responsible Mineral Initiative’s risk readiness assessment (RRA) and the Copper Mark.

The ICMM has undertaken this exercise alongside each standard owner with three key aims, with the first simplification to support investors, customers and other stakeholders in their understanding of how these standards address a range of sustainability concerns, and the extent to which there are similarities and differences between them.

The second aim is for efficiency, to make self-assessment and/or third-party validation processes more efficient for mining companies, including situations where validation is conducted for two or more standards at the same time.

The third aim is to promote transparency around mining and metals sector standards and validation processes.

The benchmarks enable all stakeholders to understand the coverage of different schemes in terms of the issues of concern to them, and any important points of difference or divergence. 

While each of these standards share the objectives of improving environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices at the operational level, there are points of difference that must be carefully assessed on a case-by-case basis, states the ICMM.

Differences occur for several reasons including that ICMM and other standard owners are distinct organisations with different memberships, mandates and governance structures.

Standards that are geography- or commodity-specific are likely to emphasise particular ESG challenges unique to that commodity or geography and the drivers behind how and why each standard was developed are likely to be similar, but not the same.

To measure the degree to which these standards may vary, ICMM has worked with each standard owner to robustly evaluate whether each individual requirement exceeds, meets, partially meets, or does not meet those of another standard.

ICMM COO Aidan Davy says the recent proliferation of sustainability standards reflects the justifiable demand from investors, consumers and other stakeholders for evidence that critically important metals and minerals are being produced responsibly.

“This was a key consideration when we developed ICMM’s enhanced membership requirements, our mining principles, and from the outset we committed to understanding the degree of alignment with other responsible sourcing standards.”

He adds that this equivalency benchmarking work is a critical step in helping to avoid the duplication of work for those companies implementing one or more of these standards at once, and in parallel promotes transparency and good practice in the sector.

“This has been a collaborative process, so I want to thank the other standard owners for their support and input at each stage of the exercise.”