Facing a raft of shifting expectations and operating conditions, the current state of play in the mining industry requires operators to balance a traditionally risk-averse culture with an openness to experimentation, and at times even learning from failure, reports global mining consultancy SRK Consulting.

According to SRK Consulting South Africa MD Andrew Van Zyl, preparing the mining industry and its stakeholders for the future has a lot to do with building the necessary resilience to deal with rapid and multiple changes, which includes the initiatives undertaken by mining companies to improve their positive social impact through localisation strategies that build local economies.

“SRK contributes to a wide range of technical, social and environmental aspects of mining, integrating these solutions so that they deliver the most sustainable and efficient outcomes,” says Van Zyl.

Mining’s core focus on safety means that every change in the way mines work has to be carefully managed in terms of the uncertainty and unintended consequences for an established protocol or task, thereby illustrating that safety will always be paramount.

“Our preoccupation with safety, though, should not be confused with an unwillingness to find innovative solutions. The sector has, in fact, made significant cultural and technological strides that embrace positive opportunities to evolve how we mine, and how we engage with broader society,” Van Zyl adds.

Learning Imperative

Efforts to evolve mining companies’ ability to operate and engage with broader society could be further enhanced by a philosophy that explicitly values constant learning. This approach, Van Zyl says, is required to develop appropriate standards for the industry and also in adapting to these new standards and requirements.

Standards that fail to produce the outcomes expected, or create unnecessary duplication, should be adapted, rejected or consolidated. Similarly, innovative approaches are often required to meet these new standards and the novel approaches developed to respond to new standards and requirements also need to be adjusted or rejected.

For example, the recently launched Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative (CMSI), which is likely to be a talking point at this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba, is an example of this process where four leading responsible mining principles and standards have now been consolidated, Van Zyl notes.

“As a unified global standard that is likely to become a transformative framework in mining ESG, the CMSI will hopefully simplify assurance requirements, and this will be particularly beneficial for smaller players in the mining sector who could feel overwhelmed by the range of responsible mining or sustainability standards being applied to the sector,” he says.

While there might be a level of scepticism, owing to the plethora of standards arising in recent years, SRK Consulting continues to identify with the industry’s general commitment to responsible mining, rather than follow the guidelines for its own sake.

As consulting engineers and scientists, much of the work that SRK Consulting does involves developing and applying solutions to new challenges.

Van Zyl notes that innovation lies at the heart of many of these solutions; whether this is made incrementally or in a more assertive leap, the onus is on ensuring that every step is based on science and linked to a “learning moment”.

The drive towards responsible mining underpins many of these imperatives.

Shared Value

Prevailing global economic conditions are making market predictions and financial planning for projects more complex, owing to the volatility of commodity demand patterns and pricing.

While covering all the technical requirements to ensure that ore reserves are correctly measured and assessed, and to be confident that chosen mining methods are optimal, SRK Consulting says mines must also become adept at building supportive relationships with adjacent communities through mutually agreed parameters for sharing value.

He concludes that mining should “give itself credit” for the considerable progress it has made in finding ways of aligning with future-facing frameworks, but adds that the sector could enhance this success by fostering an operational culture that is driven as much by learning as it is by outcomes.