Abstract

Sustainability has become a business imperative and is no longer on the fringe or nice to have.  With growing awareness and demand for ecologically and socially responsible products, many businesses have sought assurances that the minerals purchased are mined responsibly.  The environmental, social and governance matters related to the mining industry are all interweaved.  One cannot speak of responsible mining without referencing topics such as health and safety for workers, human rights, community engagement, pollution control, mining in conflict-affected areas, rights of indigenous peoples, transparency in revenue payments from companies to governments, and land reclamation once mining is done.  Considering these pressures to advance environmental and social aspects of sustainability in mining, an unspoken question is, could we have our 21st-century lifestyle steeped in electrification & digitization without this industry?  Rare earth minerals such as Cobalt allow our smartphones to function and Terbium goes into the batteries powering our electric cars while Niobium helps MRI machines function. 

The first step for organizations in this sector to define their decarbonization pathway is having visibility into the data.  Successful sustainability programs first do the hard work to understand the current state which then helps them advance to target the most effective actions.  These programs take a baseline then measure progress. Most companies have spotty visibility, a lot of spreadsheets, and some level of centralization, often failing to trap to over-analyzing.  But building in a digital approach to data, and growing capabilities at the rate, which is appropriate for the business, is key to success.  Though digitization organizations can make a sustainability vision become a reality.  Come learn how the 2021 #1 most sustainable company in the world is using data as a key component of its ESG strategy.  Sustainability pathway by using digitization and data.