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Comment period open: IRMA draft Mineral Processing Standard

16 June 2021By IRMA

Today the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) is pleased to release its draft Standard for Responsible Mineral Processing (Mineral Processing Standard) for a 60-day global public comment period. Download the draft standard (as a Word document or in pdf format).

The draft Mineral Processing Standard is IRMA’s response to stakeholder requests for a global set of best practices that go beyond ensuring responsible practice at the mine site by clarifying expectations at other key points in minerals and metals supply chains.

IRMA’s Mineral Processing Standard will serve as the basis of a global, voluntary system offering independent third-party review and certification of environmental and social performance measures at smelters, refineries and other operations involved in the processing and extraction of minerals and metals from ores, concentrates and scrap materials. It was developed through multi-stakeholder collaboration and the innovation that comes from working across diverse sectors, disciplines, and geographic locations.

The Mineral Processing Standard is incomplete without your valuable feedback. The public comment period begins today and remains open through 16 August 2021.

Learn more

IRMA is hosting two webinars to introduce the draft Mineral Processing Standard and highlight some questions that we have for stakeholders. Please join us for one of the following sessions:

How to comment

Please send comments or questions on the draft Mineral Processing Standard to: comments@responsiblemining.net.

Next steps

The 60-day public comment period ends 16 August 2021. Based on the comments and direct feedback from one or more pilot projects, we will revise the Mineral Processing Standard. We aim to release the final Standard in late 2021. We will make the final Mineral Processing Standard available on the IRMA website as well as via the IRMA e-newsletter (sign up here).

Photo information: Mineral processing operation (lead, zinc, copper and other metals), La Oroya, Peru.
Photo credit: Earthworks/Scott Cardiff.

Can Lab-Grown Diamonds Ever Really Be Sustainable?

10 June 2019By IRMA

In recent weeks, we have seen several lab-created diamond producers move away from calling themselves “eco-friendly.” That’s largely due to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) warning to lab-grown diamond producers that they should stop using “general benefit environmental claims” like eco-friendly and sustainable, and in part due to a growing cry that companies need to actually prove their eco-friendliness, beyond saying bad things about diamond mines.

Natural diamond miners will soon get a chance to label their gems with a similar phrase—“responsibly mined”—thanks to the work done by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), Mathuram notes. That label could also be used to certify the gold and other mined metals used to create lab-diamond jewelry.

Read full article on JCK Online