Government

The European Parliament

passed a resolution on a European strategy for critical raw materials.

In the document, the parliament “welcomes the EU’s commitment to responsible and sustainable sourcing and encourages the Commission to take the Standard for Responsible Mining developed by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance as a starting point, […] stressing the need to mobilise more state and private actors to also subscribe to and implement sustainability standards.”

This standard was developed by a multi-sector coalition consisting of mining companies, purchasing companies (such as jewelers and electronics manufacturers), NGOs, labour unions and mining affected communities. Also, IUCN NL and its partner organizations that are committed to the protection of vulnerable ecosystems have actively provided input during the consultation rounds.”

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SUMEX press release thumbnailSUMEX press release thumbnail

SUMEX

(Sustainable Management in EXtractive Industries – a three-year project funded by the European Commission) announced the release of a report describing the sustainability aspects that should be considered for the European extractive industry in the fields of carbon neutrality and circular economy.

The organization noted, “the project suggests one common standard to describe what responsible extraction should mean in the EU and suggests to use the IRMA Standard to describe the criteria that a responsible extractive operation should fulfill today.”

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The White House

published a report “Building Resilient Supply Chains, Revitalizing American Manufacturing, and Fostering Broad-Based Growth.”

In the report, both the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense reference the IRMA Standard as a road map for best practices in mining, saying “IRMA may provide a method for U.S. companies and the Federal Government to ensure that minerals are being sourced from mines with robust environmental, social, and financial responsibility policies, and also could provide a model for responsible development of additional mines in the United States.”

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The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Marrakech Partnership published a vision of how the Metals and Mining sector, among others, could achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 while making continuous improvements in their ESG performance.

In laying out the milestones, the authors envision that by 2025, “major mining companies have all of their mines independently verified as reducing GHG emissions/energy use and are measured against leading external ESG standards (e.g. IRMA).”

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Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR)

authored Sustainability Schemes for Mineral Resources,” a comparative overview of 19 sustainability schemes for mineral resources.

In their analysis, the authors noted: “The IRMA standard is different from other standards because it is not restricted to certain commodities and its best practice requirements are recognized by both civil society and large companies. The Standard for Responsible Mining is already said to become the most comprehensive and legitimate catalogue of requirements among all schemes due to its long, intense and democratic stakeholder involvement into the standard-setting process.”

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