Standards

Hands together at the Mototolo workshopStandards

Standards’ role in a responsible transition for steel and mining

20 February 2025By IRMA

ResponsibleSteel and the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) are collaborating on a joint project funded by ISEAL to better understand the social impacts of the net-zero transition for the steel and mining sectors and how standards can help guide good practice.

Two project leads, Haruko Horii, Standards Manager at ResponsibleSteel, and Davidzo Muchawaya, Africa Regional Lead at IRMA, provide a short Q&A for readers to better understand the project.

Q: Haruko, what is the vision for the project?

With this project, we want to understand the social impacts of the transition to net zero and what role standards can play in guiding good practice.

The term ‘just transition’ is used by different people in different ways. We need to determine what this looks like for the mining and steel sectors. What exactly is a just transition? Whose transition are we discussing? Workers, local communities or supply chains? What is the scope of transition? These are some of the questions we need to consider.

Decarbonisation could have adverse social impacts such as job losses or displacement and significant effects on weakening the economic viability of affected communities. Initial research has shown that communities are facing significant social impacts caused by the transition to low-carbon practices. For instance, thousands of people have lost their jobs as a result of shifting from blast furnace technology to electric arc furnaces. These job losses have in turn impacted the wider community’s economic stability, community identity, and overall well-being.

These are the types of issues we aim to identify through this project, assessing how voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) can address them, identifying gaps, and outlining steps for future, more detailed work that could lead to larger-scale initiatives. We’ll test our findings by engaging with workers, unions, business leaders, community organisations, and other relevant stakeholders to identify an agreed approach and create practical guidance for players in the mining and steel industry.

Q: Davidzo, what do ResponsibleSteel and IRMA have in common, and why are they collaborating on a just transition?

We believe in the power of collaboration and mutual recognition. This project is just one of many examples of how different VSSs standards can complement and leverage each other’s work. Specifically, ResponsibleSteel leverages the assurance system of standards such as IRMA’s at mine site level, while focusing on the steel production aspects. Importantly, both ResponsibleSteel and IRMA were founded on a multi-stakeholder governance system, which has been recognised as a leading practice both by industry and NGOs. This model is recognised as best practice to ensure transparency, accountability, and inclusivity.

The collaboration specific to a just transition is born out of the necessity to ensure two hard-to-abate sectors, steel and mining, address the realities workers and communities are facing in our changing world as many existing mine and steelmaking sites face adaptation or closure. Given the varying impacts of decarbonisation across regions, IRMA and ResponsibleSteel are uniquely positioned to provide frameworks that apply across these different contexts since they are both standard-setting organisations operating globally. What is more, they are able to consider both decarbonisation and the potential social impacts of the transition at the same time.

Q: How do each of you respectively integrate just transition into your standards?

Haruko: Standards are going to play a critical role in promoting accountability during the transition, ensuring they are fair and equitable. Although there is no explicit reference to a just transition in the current ResponsibleSteel International Production Standard, there are some elements to address the transition under Principle 4: Decommissioning and Closure of sites, which requires consultation with key stakeholders to minimise any adverse impacts. In future, the scope of this principle could be expanded to address issues related to site closures, or the Production Standard could adopt a different approach by providing a Just Transition Framework giving steel producers guidelines and tools to navigate an equitable transition with workers and affected communities. We plan to discuss these approaches with stakeholders in the next phases of the project. Integrating practices into the Production Standard will help ensure the industry’s transition is both environmentally and socially just.

Davidzo: As for the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining, multiple chapters and requirements articulate what best practices could and should be for mining operations wishing to ensure a just transition for workers and affected communities. A prominent example is the requirement to involve affected communities and stakeholders in the development, design, and implementation of the mine rehabilitation and closure plan. Going beyond minimum transparency, the IRMA Standard outlines a series of requirements dedicated to the adequate estimation and financing of mine closure and post-closure. Research shows that the mining operations often leave behind environmental and social liabilities, without taking charge of costs associated with the rehabilitation or appropriate closure of the sites thereby foregoing an adequate transition.

Crucially, the role played by both ResponsibleSteel and IRMA would not be the same without their multi-stakeholder governance systems. Thanks to the decision making process that takes into account private sector players as well as rights holders and labour unions, they can ensure that the voices of all parties are heard and taken into account in an equal way – hopefully adding the “just” element to “transition”.

Q: Davidzo, who is the main audience for this project?

The main audience for this project is workers and labour unions, as workers are most directly affected by the transition. Operators, from mining companies to steelmakers, are also key since, as employers, their actions and decisions will be critical to the social impacts of the transition, alongside national and subnational governments. Local communities impacted by the transition, NGOs that aim to act in their interests and standard-setting organisations are also key stakeholders.

Q: Haruko, is there a specific geographic focus for the project?

While just transition challenges and opportunities vary from country to country and even from site to site, the project is truly global as it strives to bring the complexities of these different realities to light. We aim to engage with stakeholders across different regions during the project to hear from different stakeholders the realities of the transition in different contexts. More information on this to come!

Find out more about Responsible Steel at responsiblesteel.org. Find out more about IRMA at responsiblemining.net.

Find out more about the project background, visit the project page on the ISEAL website.

Standard 2.0 updated timelineStandards

Update on the IRMA Mining Standard revision

13 February 2025By Pierre Petit-De Pasquale

Following the release of a first draft of Standard 2.0 in October 2023 for a 90-day public consultation, the IRMA Secretariat received more than 2,500 points of comments from 82 organizations (see previous update).

Although we had first anticipated the release of a second draft as early as Q3 2024 for a 60-day public consultation, such release is now expected for March 2025; and subject to approval by the IRMA multi-stakeholder equally-governed Board of Directors.

Why is the process taking longer than planned?

IRMA granted extensions to organizations that asked for more time during the first public consultation up to March 2024) to ensure all could contribute.
The quality and length of most contributions required a longer processing time from our team of subject matter experts.
During and after the first public consultation, IRMA received requests for additional engagement, including calls and in-person meetings, from a number of organizations (across NGOs, Indigenous rights’ organizations, mining companies, government agencies, and other industry actors). IRMA responded by engaging in all requests; this engagement occurred mainly April-July 2024, but also continued through November 2024.
This lengthened process delayed our ability to prepare updated material and questions for our Expert Working Groups (see note below).
A new consolidated draft was then submitted to the IRMA Board of Directors on 1^st November 2024 for a 6-week review period, aiming for their approval before the end of 2024.
Board members from the mining and the NGO sectors requested additional discussions about, and work on, the following topics:
- Rationale for, and listing of, critical requirements;
- Upstream and downstream sustainability due diligence;
- Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples;
- Tailings management, especially with regard to the GISTM standard;
- Water management;
- Biodiversity offsets;
- Carbon offsets;
- Air quality and dust management.
Finally, the fact that IRMA finalized and launched the first official version of the IRMA Chain of Custody Standard (with its associated Assurance Manual, and Claims Procedure and Communications Policy) over the course of the three first quarters of 2024 consumed attention, discussion, and refining time from both the IRMA Secretariat and the IRMA Board.

What’s next?

The second round of public consultation is coming up soon!

The IRMA Board, supported by the IRMA Secretariat, is working to finalize the new draft for a 60-day consultation period. This is now expected for March-April (NOTE: the Board agreeing to release the Standard for consultation doesn’t constitute endorsement of everything in the Standard It’s an invitation to the world to help further improve the new draft.)

Materials we will release in support of this second consultation:

A public report on the first consultation period;
A fully detailed log of all the comments that were submitted (confidential contributions will be redacted), and the response from IRMA;
The full draft Standard, that includes:
- For each chapter: summary of the changes since the 2023 first draft; details on feedback received and proposed decision for every consultation question;
- Applicability to respective development stages (exploration to permitting to operations) will be integrated within the design of the chapters;
- An updated Glossary;
- Updated annexes (including environmental quality tables);
Comparative tables between IRMA Standard V1.0 and this second draft, highlighting substantial differences.

IRMA is committed to again offer opportunities for feedback from all stakeholders and Indigenous rightsholders.

We aspire to process all the comments, convene expert working groups, and meet requests for specific engagement, during Q2 and Q3 2025, so that a final Standard may be adopted as final by the IRMA Board before the end of 2025.

We thank you all for your patience; we remain committed to working transparently on this updated IRMA Mining Standard that many are eager to use and implement.

Expert Working Groups: 2023-2024 update

Some of the Expert Working Groups that were convened in 2022 have been solicited again, while a new one was created (Mineral Supply Chain). Note that no group calls took place, and members were only asked to provide individual feedback. Details are provided in the table below:

IRMA Working Groups	Status
Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (CAHRAs)	Asked for additional contribution in August 2024 on the new draft Chapter on “Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Area Due Diligence“. It is anticipated that this working group will need to be reconvened during the second public consultation.
Land Acquisition, Displacement, and Resettlement	Asked for additional contribution in April 2024 on the new draft Chapter.
Mineral Supply Chain	Asked for additional contribution in August 2024 on the new draft Chapter on “Upstream and Downstream Sustainability Due Diligence“. It is anticipated that this working group will need to be reconvened during the second public consultation.
Planning and Financing for Mine Closure	Asked for additional contribution in August 2024 on the new draft Chapter on “Concurrent Reclamation, Closure, and Post-Closure“.
Waste and Materials Management	Asked for additional contribution in August 2024 on the new draft Chapter on “Tailings Storage Facilities and Physical Stability Management“. It is anticipated that this working group will need to be reconvened during the second public consultation.
Water Management	Asked for additional contribution in August 2024 on the new draft Chapter on “Water Management“. It is anticipated that this working group will need to be reconvened during the second public consultation.
Circularity	Solicited feedback in October 2023 when 1^st Draft was released. No particular challenge identified since.
Gender Equality and Gender Protections	Solicited feedback in October 2023 when 1^st Draft was released. No particular challenge identified since.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG)	Solicited feedback in October 2023 when 1^st Draft was released. No particular challenge identified at that time. Former “Greenhouse Gas Emissions” chapter has been expanded, renamed “Climate Action” and peer-reviewed by an external consultancy firm, AGS Carbon, specializing in Climate Action, Standard setting, and audits. It is anticipated that this working group will need to be reconvened during the second public consultation.
Indigenous Peoples and FPIC	Solicited feedback in October 2023 when 1^st Draft was released. No particular challenge identified at that time. Following specific request for engagement, the new draft chapter was sent to 15 Indigenous leaders from across all 7 socio-cultural regions (most of them were not previously part of the Expert Working Group). An in-person closed-door meeting was also organized in October 2024, following a request from Indigenous rights’ organizations and Indigenous leaders to do so. It is anticipated that this working group will need to be reconvened during the second public consultation.
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)	Solicited feedback in in October 2023 when 1^st Draft was released. No particular challenge identified since.

Expert Working Group Demographics

Total number of Working Groups: 11
Total number of Experts: 159 (87 male, 72 female)
Countries represented: 26

Standards

IRMA at Indaba: Mining Sustainability Standards interview

7 February 2025By IRMA

From the Mining Indaba website:

In this compelling interview for Mining Indaba TV, J.J. Messner de Latour, Sector Lead for Downstream Purchasers at the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), delves into the challenges and opportunities of implementing rigorous mining standards in the African mining industry.

J.J. discusses ways to overcome obstacles, improve transparency and accountability, and align with global best practices to ensure sustainable development. He also addresses the complexity of multiple mining standards and explores whether a unified industry standard is the solution. For junior miners, J.J. shares valuable advice on adopting best practices from the outset of their projects. Finally, he offers his perspective on what future-proofing African mining means today.

Standards

New version of the IRMA Guidance Document available (V1.3)

17 December 2024By Pierre Petit-De Pasquale

The IRMA Guidance Document to the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining V1.0 has been updated.

This latest version (V1.3), is available in English, and can be found under our Resources webpage.

Minor modifications were made in this updated version (V1.3) to ensure continued improvement on clarity, and auditability. The changes made are non-substantive changes that do not alter the intent of any requirement, and are based on learning and experience from audits and implementation.

Summary of changes – V1.3:
Chapter 2.5—Emergency Preparedness and Response: Updated links to APELL for Mining and APELL Handbook
(2nd Edition) to ensure access to original documents is maintained.

Chapter 3.5—Security Arrangements: Updated the chapter relevance to clarify applicability to any situation wheresecurity personnel are used at, or could be expected to be deployed to, the mine site or associated facilities, or in relation to transportation of products or ore, regardless of the level of decision-making and control of the operating company over such deployment. The sole term “used” had inadvertently limited interpretation of the chapter and requirement relevancy in a manner contradictory to the original intent of this chapter. This has also been reflected in the language used in the relevant means of verification and explanatory notes. Replaced the term “public security providers” with “authorities in charge of public security forces” to ensure coverage of situations where public security forces are “deployed” in spite of a formal arrangement with the operating company to “provide” such forces.

Chapter 4.7—Cyanide Management: Updated expectations for non-gold/silver mines that are not eligible for ICMI certification.

Indigenous Peoples: Capitalized all occurrences of “Indigenous Peoples” and updated all references to “Indigenous Peoples living in voluntary isolation” to also use the internationally recommended term of “Uncontacted Indigenous Peoples”. See updated Glossary for more details on these terms. This is relevant to Chapters 2.2, 2.4, and 3.7. Clarified expectations in situations where Uncontacted Indigenous Peoples or Indigenous Peoples Living in Voluntary Isolation or Initial Contact may be affected.

Glossary: Removed broken links to the Glossary of the IRMA Standard, as well as references to an overall glossary “at the end of the document” that was not included. Updated definitions of ‘Indigenous Peoples’ to account for the more modern and inclusive approach used currently by IRMA. Added new definitions for ‘Indigenous Peoples in Initial Contact’, ‘Indigenous Peoples Living in Voluntary Isolation’, and ‘Uncontacted Indigenous Peoples’. Updated definition of ‘Worker’ to ensure management personnel are also included.

General: For consistency, clarified in the Explanatory Notes that where references to “certification” / “certified” / ”certify” by IRMA appears in the formal language of a critical requirement, failure to meet such requirement will not only prevent the company to achieve IRMA 100, but also to achieve any Achievement Level higher than IRMA Transparency. Updated contact details of IRMA Standards Director.

IRMA Policy on Association: Replaced all references and links to the draft Policy with references and links to the official version approved in October 2023 by IRMA Board of Directors.”

Chain of Custody

Responding to Market Demand, IRMA Releases Chain of Custody Standard

23 October 2024By IRMA

In September, IRMA’s equally-governed, multi-stakeholder board approved IRMA’s new Chain of Custody Standard (CoC Standard). The CoC Standard sets requirements for tracking material produced from mining operations audited against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining, enabling consumer-facing brands and other actors along the supply chain to make credible claims that they are using materials from IRMA-assessed mines.

IRMA developed the CoC Standard and system in response to demands from consumer-facing brands and other companies for independently verified socially and environmentally responsible mined materials. Using specific requirements for tracking material from verified IRMA-audited mines and mineral processors, companies can better understand impacts in their supply chains, choose to buy from operators increasing transparency, and support their suppliers to improve practices.

The CoC Standard is also designed to be compatible with other standards programs that ensure responsible sourcing of mined materials downstream of the mine (e.g., ResponsibleSteel). In addition, IRMA developed the CoC Standard to work in concert with existing and emerging traceability services and technologies (e.g., block chain, mineral ID scanning, testing, etc.).

Based on the ISO 22095:2020 guidance, the CoC Standard allows for five different chain of custody models for chain of custody systems. Four models require and assure the actual physical presence of material with an IRMA Achievement Level: Identity Preserved, Segregated, Controlled Blending, and Mass Balance. One model is not connected to the physical flow of material, but an administrative record to ensure the quantity and achievement levels booked for materials from IRMA-assessed mines are not exceeded by the claims for those materials: Book and Claim Credits. Each model has specific requirements that allow different claims to be made about materials or products that are delivered using that chain of custody model.

“The release of the IRMA Chain of Custody Standard is an important milestone for Fairphone and the rest of the industry. This Standard enables us to provide independent proof that our responsible sourcing practices are in line with our material use responsibility: the Book and Claim Credits model provides a legitimate and workable solution for complex supply chains assuring we cover our material use with responsible production, whilst the Mass Balance model also assures the flow of these materials throughout the supply chain. At Fairphone, we look forward to piloting this standard to improve transparency and invite our industry peers to join.” – Lisa Minère, Project Manager Fair Mining at Fairphone.

“The lack of visibility into the origin of key metals in our renewable energy projects is a big hurdle to mapping and mitigating social and environmental risks in our metal supply chains. While increasing transparency has its challenges, it is possible and needed to advance our work to ensure responsible mined materials for the renewable energy transition. We support IRMA developing their new Chain of Custody Standard to work towards this goal.”– Joel Frijhoff, Sustainability Due Diligence Manager at Ørsted.

For More Information

Standards

Update on Standard for Responsible Mining 2.0

2 May 2024By IRMA

As we announced back in October, IRMA is comprehensively revising the 2018 IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining (1.0). This revision process allows IRMA to:

Remain accountable to all sectors
Remain up-to-date with best practice
Add clarity and strengthen auditability
Add consistency, and
Fill in gaps

Seeking as much as possible to align with ISEAL’s Code of Good Practice for Sustainability Systems, this revision process is informed by:

5 years of ongoing stakeholder engagement
Experiences from the initial IRMA third-party audits
Review of other standards and initiatives
Increased public awareness and evolving expectations of best practice
Review of emerging issues garnering international discussions
Changes to relevant legislation across the full scope of the standard
Comments on previous drafts (IRMA-Ready, Mineral Processing, Chain of Custody)
Targeted engagement activities on specific topics
IRMA Expert working groups, and
Public consultation

Unlike the Standard 1.0 which only covers mineral extraction operations, the IRMA Standard 2.0 is expected to also cover development, exploration, and mineral processing: the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining and Mineral Processing. Separately we will launch a Chain of Custody Standard.

Public Comments Received for the 1st Draft of IRMA Standard 2.0

The 90 day public consultation lasted from October 26 through January 26. During that time we:

Hosted 2 introductory webinars attended by 150 participants
Hosted 20 live topic consultation webinars — across multiple time zones — attended by 180 unique participants
Received 2,500+ discrete comments from 82 organizations, and
Allowed for additional engagement and feedback outside the formal process

The sector and geographic distributions of these 82 commenting organizations are shown below:

Of the 28 chapters in first draft Standard 2.0, the most-commented upon were (in alphabetical order):

Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Protected Areas
Community and Stakeholder Engagement
ESIA (Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and Management)
Fair Labor and Terms of Work
Gender Equality and Gender Protections (new)
GHG and Energy Consumption
Human Rights Due Diligence
Indigenous Peoples and FPIC
Occupational Health and Safety
Waste and Materials Management
Water Management

Public Comments Received for the second draft of the Chain of Custody Standard

A first draft was released for public comment in 2021. The 90 day public consultation for the second draft lasted from October 26 through January 26. During that time we:

Hosted 1 live consultation event: 41 participants
Received 80 distinct comments from 10 different organizations based in Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, and the USA

Timeline

As included in the graphic below, the IRMA Secretariat is currently processing all the public comments received. Although subject to the approval of the IRMA Board of Directors, it is envisaged to release a 2nd draft for public comment in the second half of 2024. We hope to launch the actual Standard 2.0 – once approved by the IRMA Board of Directors – towards the end of 2024, thus triggering a transition period (duration to be decided and approved by the Board) between versions 1.0 and the 2.0 for all the entities and sites engaged (and seeking to engage) in the IRMA System.

ISO logoStandards

“Sustainable Critical Minerals Supply Chains” ISO Workshop

2 April 2024By IRMA

Share Your Experience: ISO Workshop on “Sustainable Critical Minerals Supply Chains” 16-17 April, New York City

RSVP with ISO for Virtual or In-Person Participation

IRMA is participating in a series of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Workshop Agreement (IWA) 45 sessions focused on “sustainable critical minerals supply chains.” ISO welcomes you to share your experience at the second session of IWA 45 this 16-17 April.

The series, hosted by Standards Australia, explores sustainability tools, guides, and frameworks available to “assist in improving an organization’s sustainability outcomes.” Following a first in-person only session held in Tokyo, Japan, the second IWA 45 session aims to broaden stakeholder engagement, including by enabling both in-person and virtual participation in the New York City session.

The IWA 45 series is important as it will inform the work of the ISO and the national standards bodies of its member countries, including, for example, work under ISO/PC 348 to specify criteria for sustainable raw materials from extraction to final product manufacturing.

For More Information:

Credit: Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4freeStandards

The IRMA Standards revision — an update

29 February 2024By IRMA

IRMA would like to warmly thank all the people who have participated in the public-comment period that ended on 26 January to inform the revision of our Standards.

Through our live consultation webinars, our online platform, and direct engagement, we have collected about 2,000 individual lines of comments, submitted by more than 80 organizations spread across all continents (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Australia).

Building upon 5 years of implementation, learning, and continuous stakeholder engagement on the Standard, the IRMA Secretariat is now consolidating and processing all these comments and recommendations. Additional Expert Working Groups are being convened where necessary.

Subject to the approval of IRMA’s equally-governed multi-stakeholder Board, we hope to launch the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining and Mineral Processing V2.0 before the end of the year, together with a public report on the comment period and the rationale for the final changes made and approved. We hope to also launch the IRMA Chain of Custody Standard this year, also subject to Board’s approval.

Credit: Dick Thomas Johnson-CCBY2.0Standards

ISO, responsible mining, and multi-stakeholder engagement

21 February 2024By IRMA

As the ISO takes on important work on responsible mining, IRMA restates the importance of inclusive and meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement

On 15-16 February 2024 in Tokyo, Japan, IRMA participated in the first working session of the ISO IWA 45, an international working agreement on “sustainable critical mineral supply chains.” This project is led by Standards Australia (Australia’s national standardization body) under the auspices of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and is tasked to “understand the range of sustainability tools/guides/frameworks available which will assist in improving an organization’s sustainability outcomes.” ISO is a quasi-governmental organization dedicated to standard development, headquartered in Switzerland and composed of the national standards bodies of its member countries.

This workshop was an in-person-only event which, while providing constructive opportunity for people to connect directly, dramatically reduced the number and diversity of stakeholders affected by mining and mineral value chains to participate. There were about 45 participants, with a majority from industry (mining and mineral processing) and consultants to the private sector, followed by government delegations (including national standardization bodies and state agencies or research institutions). The most represented countries were the United States, Canada, China, and Japan.

Articulating the perspectives of our members from six houses—affected communities, downstream purchasers, investment and finance, mining industry, NGOs, and organized labor—IRMA worked actively in the session to integrate the perspectives of civil society and organized labor, as those groups were not in attendance. We are concerned about how their absence might leave a significant gap in this process and encourage the event organizers to increase this outreach.

The working session opened with a summary of the results obtained from a preliminary survey circulated by Standards Australia in January 2024. Of the 115 full responses received, two-thirds came from the mining and mineral processing industry, 7% from NGOs, and 7% from academia. Most of the responses originated from China and Canada (over 10%), followed by the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Germany, South Africa, and Sweden; other countries were all under 3%.

Given the survey feedback was foremost from industry, the main insights shared by the workshop organizer reflected the positions of industry representatives who engaged in the survey, including the “proliferation,” “overlap,” and “inefficiency” of sustainability standards, the “confusion” they would create, and the “burden” created by assurance mechanisms that would be “significant, costly, and time-consuming”.

It is worth noting that IRMA has never heard civil society or mine workers complain that “assurance processes are too expensive,” but rather that they see need for increased investment in transparent sharing of information on performance and for improved practices. We hope that Standards Australia will be able to soon provide a breakdown of the responses by stakeholder groups and increase outreach to civil society, Indigenous rights holders, and labor leaders.

IRMA emphasized throughout the workshop the importance of inclusive and meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement for ISO to ensure robustness and credibility in its processes and its efforts to standardize responsible business practice. A number of other participants similarly asked for more proactive and targeted outreach to all stakeholder groups. The issue of inclusive and meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement was then selected by the organizer as the final topic for plenary discussion.

As currently designed, IWA and ISO processes, including IWA 45, are not inclusive for affected communities, NGOs, and organized labor, and do not allow for meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement. We ask that this fundamental gap be identified as the top priority in the final report that will be produced by Standards Australia this year, including as a key recommendation to inform the other ongoing ISO committees and workstreams on responsible mining and sustainable mineral value chains.

Photo credit: Dick Thomas Johnson CCBY2.0

Cover of IRMA Draft Standard 2.0 Proposed Normative Requirements for Exploration, Development and Mineral ProcessingStandards

Std 2.0 and Exploration, Development & Processing

29 November 2023By IRMA

The IRMA Draft Standard for Responsible Mining and Mineral Processing 2.0 incorporates the draft IRMA Standard for Responsible Mineral Development and Exploration (the ‘IRMA-Ready’ Standard – Draft v1.0 December 2021), the draft IRMA Standard for Responsible Minerals Processing (Draft v1.0 June 2021), and the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining 1.0 (2018) into one integrated standard that covers all phases and types of mineral development activities.

The 2023 proposed revisions for version 2.0 are meant to apply at any phase of the mineral development life cycle (e.g., exploration, project development, permitting, construction, mining and processing operations, reclamation and closure, post-closure).

To highlight and clarify those additions, we have released a summary of the draft Normative Requirements for those phases — where IRMA requirements are modified to govern stages of exploration, development or mineral processing. The IRMA Draft Standard 2.0 Normative Requirements for each chapter are provided and discussed in Appendix A.

In the context of this guidance document, a normative requirement modifies a given IRMA requirement from the IRMA DRAFT Standard 2.0 for a specific phase, by either replacing or supplementing the original text of this requirement. We use the terminology “normative requirements” here since they modify the elements that would actually be required and that auditors would measure against, not just guidance that helps to enrich or guide understanding of those requirements.

These Normative Requirements are part of the Draft Standard 2.0, so just as with the rest of the draft Standard, they are proposed and open for public comment until January 26, 2024.