We are consolidating our four existing mining standards into one standard and multi-stakeholder oversight system. Our vision is to simplify the current mining standards landscape and promote continual improvement of environmental, social and governance practices along individual metals’ value chains – from mining to smelting, refining and beyond.
Our aim is for this Standard to be adopted by a wide range of mining companies – large and small, across all commodities and locations – to drive performance improvement at scale. The purpose of this work is to reduce the complexity of the current standards landscape, meet the needs of a wide range of stakeholders and drive improved performance on responsible mining at scale.
We have worked with members of the Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) and the Industry Advisory Group (IAG) to leverage our collective expertise and perspectives to draft the Initiative’s three core elements which we are seeing views on:
The Standard
The Standard, which brings together the attributes of the four individual standards while eliminating duplication, filling gaps and making improvements where appropriate. It comprises 24 performance areas that cover a wide range of topics related to responsible mining.
Each of the performance areas has requirements grouped into three distinct levels: Foundational practice (a starting position of conformance with minimum industry standards); Good practice (a level of practice in line with industry standards and international norms, frameworks and guidelines), and Leading practice (a level of practice which goes beyond good practice and demonstrates leadership or best practice).
The Assurance Process, Reporting and Claims Policy
The assurance process defines the steps required to provide a credible third-party validation of the status of implementation of the Standard by individual facilities. The assurance process covers four stages: planning, execution, reporting and quality oversight.
The assurance process includes a procedure by which potential disputes between the assurance provider and facility can be addressed, as well as a publicly accessible grievance process managed by the Secretariat for citizens to raise concerns with the assurance process and its implementation. The draft assurance process can be found here.
The claims policy describes the framework that governs the proposed claims that may be made by participating facilities. The claims policy can be found here.
The Governance Model
The proposed governance model envisions an independent entity that will oversee further development, promotion and maintenance of the Standard. It will implement the related assurance process, grievance mechanism and reporting and claims policy, and provide a platform for public disclosure of information such as outcomes of assurance. This entity will be governed by a diverse, independent Board with equal participation of companies and individuals from stakeholder and rights holders’ groups across the mining industry and wider value chain. This model will emphasise consensus-based decision-making. It is the intention that The Copper Mark, including its Board, will transition and evolve into this independent entity.
The draft governance model can be found here.
Development Process
The process has been guided by two advisory groups: one comprising industry representatives (the Industry Advisory Group), and the other bringing together a diverse range of voices from stakeholders including NGOs, investors, Indigenous groups, customers and multilateral organisations (the Stakeholder Advisory Group). Members of these groups have worked together to leverage their expertise to support the development of the Standard and multi-stakeholder oversight system.
Guided by ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice, the draft Standard, governance model, assurance process, reporting and claims policy will be shared online for two rounds of public consultation. The first consultation is now closed, and feedback will be summarised and published in a consultation report in due course. For full transparency, the individual consultation responses will also be publicly available with the permission of those consulted.
The feedback will guide updates to the Standard and oversight system that will be shared for a second round of public consultation in 2025. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on the next stage of the process.
Decision Making Process
We aim to achieve consensus support for each element of the standard from the SAG and the IAG prior to each public consultation phase. The objective is to establish a diverse, Independent Board of the entity overseeing the Standard and assurance process prior to the finalisation of the Standard. This Board will make the final decision on the adoption of the new standard. The Boards of each of the four Partners have been – and will be – closely involved in overseeing the development of the Standard. Once finalised, the Standard is expected to be adopted by existing members of ICMM, WGC, MAC and participants of The Copper Mark.
Terms of reference for the initiative can be found here and you can learn more about the initiative here.
