TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – A new report, and the first of its kind in Canada, ‘Local Procurement by the Canadian Mining Industry: A Study of Public Reporting Trends’, released this week by Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB), had found Canadian mining companies were starting to talk more about local procurement of goods and services in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting.

Both in Canada and in developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, Canadian mining companies were increasingly looking at how to increase their positive economic impacts on host economies.

“Local procurement offers mining companies an effective method to increase local jobs and income, transfer skills and technology, and help create vital domestic business networks. It also helps Canadian mining companies gain local support for their operations by keeping more of the economic benefits of mining in the regions where mining actually takes place,” EWB’s ‘mining shared value’ initiative lead Jeff Geipel said on Thursday.

The initiative is an EWB programme that works to improve the development impacts of Canadian mining in developing regions by encouraging and helping the industry to buy more goods and services locally.

In recent years, countries and communities hosting mining operations had been increasing their expectations of the benefits they should receive from natural resource extraction. The growing number of Canadian mining companies attempting to show their economic impacts through reporting on local procurement suggests that the industry was getting the message.

The report, which focused on Canada’s 50 largest mining companies, outlines how these companies were increasingly describing local procurement as part of responsible mining in their public reporting, outlining programming to help local firms supply mining projects, and providing statistics such as the proportion of company spending going to local suppliers.

For example, of the 50 largest mining companies, the number of companies that reported an official local procurement policy tripled from 2011 to 2012. From the same group, the number of companies providing detail on programmes they were implementing to increase local spending, such as providing training for local firms, increased by 25% over the same period.

EWB said that it planned to produce this report yearly to encourage Canadian mining companies to increase the level of detail they provide regarding their local procurement practices, with the hope of encouraging miners to increase procuring local goods and services.

EWB would be hosting a panel focused on local procurement at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention on March 3.

The panel would include industry representatives from Sherritt, one of Canada’s largest mining companies with operations in Madagascar; O Trade, a consulting firm specialising in local procurement; and Building Markets, a social enterprise that connects global buyers with local suppliers in developing countries.

“The panel will explore some of the innovative strategies that mining industry actors are taking to overcome challenges to buy locally in underdeveloped regions. This is exciting because as more Canadian mining companies focus on local procurement, economic and social development impacts will improve across the industry.”