The European Environmental Bureau and Friends of the Earth Europe
published “Green Mining is a Myth,” a study illustrating how the EU is extracting and consuming a dangerous proportion of the world’s limited resources, with serious consequences.
In the report, the groups name IRMA as “the leading standard on good mining practices” and call for “mandatory IRMA certification for the metal and mineral mining sector through the EU Taxonomy Regulation” and go on to clarify that “unlike weaker standards (e.g. CERA, UNGP, OECD Guidelines), IRMA certification happens at the mine site, rather than the company-level, and follows a step-by-step approach as opposed to a pass or fail one. This breakdown provides better transparency about each activity and prevents companies from making overarching claims about their operations.”