Are miners certifiable?
Published by MAC on 2006-06-22
Are miners certifiable?
22nd June 2006
Cement and construction companies are signing up to yet another initiative to "green" one of the dirtiest industries on our planet. Lafarge, the world's biggest cement producer (which has a "sustainability" alliance with WWF) is among the first to back the new proposals. What will the new code mean in practice? Will companies be able to determine whether sand comes from a particular Indonesian beach and rock from a specific Indian hillside? Or that they haven't been dug out by bonded, forced, or badly-paid. contract labour?
Perhaps another Kimberley-type process is required for builders and their suppliers. But then, how do you enforce a global system to check the origins and movement of the billions of tonnes of aggregates, sand and cement, which shift around this planet every day?
At last week's African Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) conference, held in South Africa, delegates determined that improving the Kimberley Process was a key objective for the coming year, since many "conflict" diamonds are slipping through the net.
The Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices, under former a WWF staffer responsible for "improved mining practices", now wants to vet artisanal diamond operations and traders to bring them under the Process.
And, in early June, several big mining companies and three major NGOs (including, inevitably, WWF) met in Vancouver to discuss an "ethical labelling" system for a wide range of other mineral products.
"Certification" has now entered the debate between the minerals industry and some of its erstwhile detractors. On the other hand, defects are increasingly being noted in the long-standing system to certify "sustainable timber". Why should a similar process with metals be any more effective?
"Voluntarism" is still at the core of these proposals, while mining-affected communities are largely left out of the loop. On these grounds alone, we should be highly sceptical of the schemes currently on offer and the motives of mining companies in apparently backing them.