Governance Model - Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative

The CMSI Governance Model was published in September 2025.

Governance Appointments

Independent Chair (Designate) appointed

The Copper Mark has appointed Daniel Ortega-Pacheco to its independent Board of Directors. He will serve initially as a non-executive Director before taking the role of Chair of the Copper Mark’s evolved Board of Directors once it is established later this year. Daniel Ortega-Pacheco is an experienced leader with a strong track record in complex international and multi-stakeholder governance, with work spanning climate, agriculture, natural resources, finance, and sustainability. In addition to his role with the Copper Mark, he serves as Expert Panel Co-Chair with the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets and leads the Executive Secretariat of the Partnership for Agricultural Carbon. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management from The Ohio State University. Read more here

Following the publication of the CMSI Governance Model on 8 September 2025, the Copper Mark started the process to evolve its governance structure accordingly. The Copper Mark’s evolved Board of Directors will be solely responsible for approving the final Consolidated Standard, Assurance Process and Claims Policy. Once the CMSI process is completed, the evolved Copper Mark will take ownership of the consolidated mining Standard and manage its implementation.

Applications for Directors are still under review ahead of the appointments to be announced later this year.

The evolution of the Governance Model has been guided by the rich feedback received during the public consultation, as well as extensive input from our Stakeholder and Industry Advisory Groups. A report outlining how feedback from the first public consultation on the Governance Model has been addressed, has been published alongside the Governance Model.

Consultation feedback report

The Governance Model will comprise a 17-member Board of Directors, led by an Independent Chair, and is designed to balance participation across companies and stakeholder groups spanning mining and value chain activities. The Board will comprise:

Four Directors from mining companies – or their representatives – implementing the Standard.
These Directors will be drawn from the memberships of ICMM, MAC, and WGC (one per organisation), with one additional Director selected by the International Copper Association (ICA).
Four Directors from mining-affected stakeholders and rights-holders.
This will include one Director representing Indigenous Peoples, one from labour, one focused on social/human rights and one from an environmental perspective, with a blend of local, regional and global representation.
Four Directors from value chain companies committed to responsible minerals and metals value chains.
This will include two consumer-facing companies, such as OEMs; one standalone recycler, smelter or refiner; and a component manufacturer.
Four Directors from non-commercial value chain stakeholders committed to responsible minerals and metals value chains, drawn from two categories:
- international NGOs, multilateral organisations, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and academics with expertise in responsible value chains; and
- stakeholders directly affected by midstream and downstream value chain activities who reflect social, community, environmental or labour concerns linked to the midstream and downstream. Ideally, this would have a balance of two Directors from each category. In the initial Board, however, more than two candidates may be drawn from the first category, provided there is no more than one Director from each stakeholder group and that stakeholders directly affected by value chain activities (second category) will be included in the renewal of the Board and in accordance with the value chain strategy.

Changes since the first public consultation

In response to the consultation feedback, key changes have been made to how the initial Board will be formed, most notably the removal of the CMSI Partners from the process of selecting the Independent Chair. The Independent Chair will now be selected through a sub-committee drawn from the Stakeholder and Industry Advisory Groups; the Stakeholder Advisory Group will also play a central role in selecting other Board members through nomination sub-committees. If there is insufficient interest from the Stakeholder or Industry advisory Group members to serve on any of the three Nominations Sub-committees, or a lack of perspectives from interested Advisory Group members which reflect the intended diversity criteria of the Board seats being recruited for, some nominations sub-committee members may be drawn from The Copper Mark Advisory Council to address this. This selection will be preceded by a public, open call for applications or nominations in a way that encourages broad participation across stakeholders and geographies.
Additional revisions have also been made to clarify the commitment to balanced representation of value-chain and mining interests, as well as commercial and non-commercial interests. These changes aim to ensure the model is inclusive of the perspectives of all stakeholders and rights-holders.

Transition to an independent Board with multi-stakeholder participation

The publication of the Governance Model marks a significant step toward the establishment of an independent, Board reflecting multi-stakeholder participation.
The Governance Model will be adopted by The Copper Mark as it evolves to become the Secretariat for the Standard. The Copper Mark’s own Governance Model, including its current independent Board and Advisory Council, will evolve to the 17-member Board of Directors. A public, open call for applications for Board appointments will be made, and this evolution should be completed before the finalisation of the Standard.
The Copper Mark has commenced a rebranding exercise to include the wider vision of an evolved organisation overseeing both the new Consolidated Mining Standard as well as its existing operations, standards and assurance frameworks.
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