The Responsible Mining Index 2020 report assesses 38 mining companies with 967 mine sites operating in 52 countries from the perspective of what society can reasonably expect of large-scale mining companies. The assessment covers 43 topics, grouped into six broad thematic areas: Economic Development, Business Conduct, Lifecycle Management, Community Wellbeing, Working Condition, and Environmental Responsibility.
The report issued by Responsible Mining Foundation finds that less than half of the companies show any evidence of addressing the key issues of national and supranational development planning and procurement. Companies also show markedly weaker results on planning to address the impact of closures on workers, compared to their efforts to make provisions for addressing the impact of closures on communities.
The Community Wellbeing results show the largest number of low-scoring companies relative to other thematic areas. The weakest in this area relates to the impacts of mining activities on vulnerable groups, including company efforts to assess the impacts of their activities on women, youth, and children. While in the area of Working conditions, the weakest results are seen on issues such as protecting women workers from harassment and violence and tracking and reviewing the effectiveness of worker grievance mechanisms.
The area of Business Conduct shows is on average higher than for any other thematic area. Many companies have made formal commitments to prevent bribery and corruption. The last area, environmental responsibility, most companies have made formalized commitments to manage their environmental impacts systematically but only very few have a commitment to action.
Read the report here.
Download the summary here.
