The rush for minerals to supply the global effort to ditch fossil fuels will place added stress on the environment and could worsen corruption, but offers the mining sector the chance to recast its image, a major industry event has heard.
Even with the prospect of rapid expansion, the industry faces big challenges in attracting and keeping talent.
Young people are leaving the sector “in droves”, with companies struggling to counter views that the industry was dirty, dull and lacked diversity, speakers at the International Mining and Resources Conference in Sydney said.
The chair of Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and former New Zealand prime minister, Helen Clark, noted an earlier panellist’s view that the global decarbonisation effort offered “the greatest reputational repositioning opportunity for mining if it can be got right”.
Delegates heard $125tn would be required to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, increasing demand for copper, lithium and other metals by as much as four fold.
A typical electric vehicle would need six times the minerals of its conventional equivalent, while an onshore windfarm would use nine times the materials of a gas-fired power plant, Clark said in her keynote address.
“The more ambitious the world is in its decarbonisation efforts, the more mining it’s going to need,” she said.
But Clark said the industry faced “significant governance challenges”, not least the push of mines into “more environmentally and socially sensitive areas”.
Helen Clark, former New Zealand PM, now chair of the Extractives industries transparency initiative, giving the keynote speech at the #IMARC conference in Sydney. pic.twitter.com/V7wTdvqejF
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) November 2, 2022
Half of the 700 active mining projects for transition minerals in 57 nations that have signed up to the EITI standards are “overlapping with conservation areas”.
About 80% of those projects were on or near Indigenous land or other “land-connected peoples”, Clark said. Water availability was another issue particularly for some lithium projects.
“Where mining has a negative impact on access to water, women and girls will suffer disproportionately as the main collectors of water for families,” she said.
The emphasis on speed was already resulting in a “fast-tracking” of mining approvals.
“With the motivations for that may, of course, be legitimate, there’s the risk of harm to communities and the environment if there aren’t sufficient safeguards,” Clark said.
In addition, there was a “key risk of corruption” because about 30% to 40% of the production of low-carbon materials will originate in countries “with weak governance now”.
“Bribes may be used to influence decision-making or preferential treatment,” she said.
“The means of mineral production and trade need to be consistent with the ends to which they are used,” Clark said. “They must benefit people and planet.”
The conference itself was heavily policed, with mounted officers, sniffer dogs and police patrols. Guardian Australia was pulled aside and questioned by two plain-clothed detectives about a brief meeting with three protesters.
The main protest is planned for Friday.
Sniffer dogs too… taking no chances at the international mining conference in Sydney… pic.twitter.com/uU2SEmRy7F
— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) November 1, 2022
Other speakers highlighted the opportunities of the industry, but also the challenges, such as widespread claims of discrimination.
A Western Australian parliamentary inquiry was told women accounted for 74% of mining workers who reported workplace sexual harassment, despite making up less than 20% of the workforce.
An independent review by Rio Tinto found 28.2% of women had experienced sexual harassment at work, while 21 women reported actual or attempted rape, the federal resources minister, Madeleine King, noted recently.
The chief financial officer of Newcrest Mining, Sherry Duhe, said the inquiry’s findings were “disgusting and unacceptable and I think have laid bare the significant amount of work that still needs to be done, individually and collectively, to protect people’s physical and psychological safety”.
The WA head of corporate finance for ANZ, Megan Joyce, said staff wanted to work in “something green, or renewable [that] was making a difference” and it was a struggle to “get anyone in our Sydney or Melbourne offices who want to work in the mining sector”.
She said workers were also put off by an industry that was dirty, dull and lacking diversity.
“When you ask young people, ‘pale, male and stale’ [with] a lot of tattoos’ is often their response,” Joyce said. “Something material has to change.”
Troy Hey, an executive with mining group MMG, said trying to get undergraduates interested in mining was difficult.
“Students are seeing a labour market that is buoyant, they are making a decision on lifestyle and issues,” Hey said. “They are walking away in droves … and it’s not just Australia, either.”
Jasvy Shi, an engineer with equipment supplier Bosch, said young people should be prepared to give the mining industry a chance.
“We are in this together,” Shi said. “We have the same expectation – we want a greener planet. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. Be more patient, it will come.”
