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UNEP-IRMA Side Session. Photo Credit: Brendan SchwartzBlog

IRMA Engagement at IGF Annual General Meeting

13 November 2025By Kristi Disney Bruckner

This November IRMA participated in the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development (IGF) 21^st Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. IGF’s 86 Member Countries met with participants from around the world to discuss “Value Beyond Extraction: Rethinking Mining for a Resilient Future.”

The IGF AGM offers an opportunity for IRMA to gather with IRMA Members and AGM participants from around the globe and to contribute to discussions on key topics. This year IRMA’s contribution to the IGF AGM focused on organizing and co-facilitating a Partner-led Side Session with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The UNEP-IRMA Side Session “Strategies for Strengthening Traceability and Circularity,” provided an overview of emerging strategies and partnerships for traceability and circularity, emphasizing opportunities to advance the General Principles and Actionable Recommendations from the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. The session outlined UNEP’s work on traceability and circularity, including the implementation of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) 6/5 Resolution on environmental aspects of minerals and metals; strategies from the African Union, G7, and G20; examples of approaches of voluntary standards; and a discussion of opportunities to build coherence to amplify positive impacts.

UNEP’s Charlotte Ndakorerwa opened the session with a summary of the UNEA Resolution 6/5, including development of a knowledge hub, and Colombia’s resolution for UNEA-7 on traceability and other aspects of minerals and metals. IRMA’s Law and Policy Director, Kristi Disney Bruckner, provided a brief overview of IRMA and examples of the many new initiatives in development, including the Future Minerals Forum Sustainability Framework, the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Global Alliance for Responsible and Green Minerals, the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan and recently launched Roadmap, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards development, emerging national standards, and others. “This is an opportunity moment to build partnerships and coherence to amplify the positive impacts of these initiatives,” she said, “including to advance the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals Guiding Principles and Actionable Recommendations.”

Marit Kitaw of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and Former Interim Director of the African Minerals Development Centre (AMDC) provided an overview of the African Union’s Green Minerals Strategy. The strategy aims to retain value that historically has been lost with exports, focusing on infrastructure, skills, technology, sustainability, value addition, and governance. “We need win-win partnerships,” Marit said, noting that Africa is endowed with over 30% of the world’s critical minerals. “Win-win means for everyone.”

Parliamentarian Cecilia Nicolini, Former National Environment Secretary of Argentina, leading energy transition minerals discussions in Argentina and in MERCOSUR, shared development of a MERCOSUR Regional Strategic Minerals Plan, noting the need for regulatory harmonization and strengthening South-South relationships. “We can be more competitive in a sustainable world,” she said, with “a common voice in the international arena.”

Rodrigo Urquiza Caroca of Chile’s Ministry of Mining discussed Chile’s national strategies for energy transition minerals. Chile has built experience over more than 100 years, learning to balance environmental, social, and economic impacts and implement the International Labour Organization Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO 169). Over 14 meetings with communities over two years informed Chile’s National Lithium Strategy. The country is also learning from its relationships and agreements with bordering countries.

The panel also discussed the work of the G7. Daniel Hill, Deputy Director of Natural Resources Canada, provided an overview of the G7 Critical Minerals Action Plan and Roadmap noting efforts on traceability, transparency, investment resiliency, innovation, anti-corruption, and performance-based criteria.

The work of civil society organizations is essential to inform and guide development of emerging frameworks. Erica Westenberg, Governance Programs Director at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), shared experience collaborating with civil society to advance the objectives of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals. Erica noted that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has been silent on critical minerals and NRGI is working with others to change this to increase equity and justice in the minerals sector. Erica also discussed Colombia’s UNEA-7 resolution on minerals and metals, covering traceability and other topics that aim to advance the work of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel. In her remarks, Erica launched the Expert Group on Preventing Corruption in Transition Minerals report “From Mine to Market: Using Traceability to Fight Mineral Sector Corruption,” noting contributions from IRMA.

Inga Petersen, Executive Director of the Global Battery Alliance, shared GBA’s commitment to a multistakeholder approach to enhance traceability and circularity. “We need collaboration, now more than ever,” she said, noting that even with full recycling of batteries we will have more mining and need to scale social and environmental protections. “We need transparency to understand risks along the value chain,” she said, and “it can only be meaningful if it comes with accountability.” Inga shared an overview of GBA’s recently released Battery Benchmarks, inviting collaboration.

Discussion focused on the need to focus not only on producing countries but also on consumers to ask about responsible sourcing. Participants further discussed traceability, noting that while there is much progress to be made, this has been done in other high-risk and high-reward sectors, and we can learn from these efforts. The discussion also identified opportunities to focus more on value addition, end use of materials, and circularity.

Charlotte concluded the session, noting themes that emerged from the panel and discussion. “There is a need for alignment and interoperability,” she said. “We really need more partnership and collaboration at global and regional levels that are win-win.”

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“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: Dick Thomas Johnson-CCBY2.0Asia

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

Thumbnail of cover of IRMA comments to ANSI re DIN ISO raw materialsGovernment

Comments to ANSI re DIN ISO Sustainable Raw Materials Proposal

30 June 2023By IRMA

On 30 Jun, IRMA submitted comments to the American National Standards Institute regarding the DIN ISO Sustainable Raw Materials Proposal. Available here, the introduction is excerpted below:

June 30, 2023

Steven Cornish
ANSI Senior Director of International Policy and Strategy
scornish@ansi.org

Dear Mr. Cornish,

Thank you and your colleagues at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) for the opportunity to submit comments on the DIN ISO Sustainable Raw Materials Proposal.

We do not think the ISO Sustainable Raw Materials standard as outlined in this proposal is needed because the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) is already addressing the gaps identified in the proposal.

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