1. Behind the Schemes: Anticorruption Gaps in Mining Sector Certifications
- Author:
- Susannah Fitzgerald, Robert Pitman, Matthieu Salomon, and Phesheya Nxumalo
- Publication Date:
- 11-2024
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Natural Resource Governance Institute
- Abstract:
- Decisionmakers are increasingly looking to certification schemes to provide information on the sustainability of mining operations, yet these schemes have significant room for improvement regarding how they address corruption in their standards. The report assesses the content of the performance standards used by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), The Copper Mark, and Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM). Schemes address some topics, such as revenue and payments and anticorruption procedures, relatively well; this may reflect the extent to which legislation and regulations address these topics. Schemes’ standards less frequently covered other issues, such as beneficial ownership and allegations of corruption. Many schemes, and the mining companies that use them, are missing an opportunity to assess the implementation of corporate-level anticorruption policies in mine-site assessments. The quality of certification schemes’ governance and assurance processes is essential to their effectiveness, yet many fall short of best practice. This undermines their credibility. Key governance challenges include the unbalanced representation of different interests within schemes and the risk of conflicts of interest in the auditing process. Decisionmakers risk becoming overreliant on certification schemes as indicators of responsible business conduct, which may be facilitated in part by industry influence over policymaking processes. Certification schemes are not a replacement for ongoing, robust due diligence into the environmental, social, and governance impacts of mining operations, including corruption, and the design and enforcement of robust regulatory frameworks. In a shifting standards landscape where there are efforts to both consolidate and review existing certification schemes, and a moment where the risk of corruption is heightened by growing demand for transition minerals, governments, mining companies, and certification schemes themselves must do more to address the topic of corruption. To do so effectively, they should focus their attention on solutions that will have the most impact in addressing this issue.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Environment, Governance, Accountability, Mining, Transparency, and Minerals
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus