The Environmental sustainability of mining in Australia: key mega-trends and looming constraints
Introduction
The phrase “sustainable mining” appears, at first glance, to be a simple oxymoron—an apparent paradox. After all, numerous famous mines have long since closed due to a finite quantity of ore able to be economically (or technologically) mined and processed at that given period of history. Yet in reality there are mines in operation today that dwarf the productive output of previous generations of mines—an evident paradox.
Mineral resources are widely interpreted to be ‘finite’ with respect to sustainable development, since metals and minerals are non-renewable (at least in human or biological time scales). The most recognised study for this view is perhaps the 1972 Club of Rome analysis ‘Limits to Growth’ (Meadows et al., 1972), which included a systems dynamic model called “World3” designed to qualitatively model the interaction of global population, social issues, environmental impacts, mineral and energy resources and the economy (including the recent 30-year update; Meadows et al., 2004). It must be pointed out that one of the major contributors to global collapse by around 2050 in the World3 model was the extent of finite resources, though even if resources were doubled this merely delayed the timing of collapse. In response, some have argued in response that economic mineral resources are not a stationary, solitary figure, but rather a function of prevailing economic, technological, social and environmental constraints (e.g. Hancock, 1993; IIED and WBCSD, 2002; Tilton, 2003).
In recent years there has been a renewed public debate about mining and its sustainability, due to strong public sentiment on environmental and social issues surrounding the mining industry in Australia and globally. The past decade in particular has seen an increasingly focused debate on the need to shift modern mining to a more sustainable framework, with many mining companies now reporting annually on their sustainability performance alongside financial results. The approach to describing what is “sustainable mining” varies considerably, largely dependent on whether the view is from industry, government or civil society groups. A common approach in all views is that there should be ongoing availability of resources and a productive environment and healthy community at both current and former mining sites (Cowell et al., 1999; Gordon et al., 2006).
In the build-up towards the 2002 Johannesburg Earth Summit (the ‘Rio+10’ follow-up), nine of the largest mining and metal companies established the ‘Global Mining Initiative’ to examine mining, sustainability and the performance of the industry. In 2000, they launched the ‘Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development’ (MMSD) project. While the principal report, called “Breaking New Ground” (IIED and WBCSD, 2002), was released in 2002 for the Johannesburg Summit, the MMSD project also produced various regional reports and associated studies. The MMSD project articulated a pivotal change in approaching sustainability with a move away from arguing individual mines may be sustainable, to the sector as a whole contributing to sustainable development. The emphasis on ‘contributing to sustainable development’ allows broader consideration of a balance of social, economic and environmental facets for the industry as whole. Thus it is the sum of all individual mines over time and space and their respective resources, impacts and benefits which should be considered in ascribing sustainability to mining. While individual mine performance remains crucial, a focus on the sector as a whole is necessary to examine sustainability in a thorough way.
It is also important to recognise that constraints on new mines may be social (e.g. cost, availability of skilled labour; (Garcia et al., 2001), as well as the capacity of host communities), political (e.g. iron ore export bans in the 1930s), technical (e.g. forty year delay in development of the McArthur River lead–zinc project; high arsenic levels in ore at the former Armstrong nickel mine), economic (markets, supply/demand), and/or environmental in nature (e.g. delay of uranium projects; exclusion of mining in national parks) (see Mudd, 2009a). In Australia this recognition of the broader context of ‘economic’ mineral resources is embedded into the statutory Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) code for reporting economic resources (AusIMM et al., 2004; Stephenson, 2001).
The continuing debate on incorporating sustainable development into the mining industry, however, does not include systematic, long-term data on mining. Data for aspects such as economic resources, ore grades, solid waste burden (tailings and waste rock) and inputs and outputs, are fundamental evidence in any assessment or quantification of the environmental sustainability of mining. Many of these historical trends have recently been compiled for the Australian mining industry (Mudd, 2009a).
Since many companies now publish annual sustainability reports, it is possible to link long-term trends in mining to key environmental aspects such as water and energy consumption, solid wastes, chemical inputs, greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. Collectively, these aspects are broadly referred to as ‘resource intensity’. Access to these data are critical for cleaner production and holistic life cycle analyses, both of which are foundation tools for sustainability assessments (e.g. Norgate and Rankin, 2002; Stewart and Petrie, 2006).
The most popular sustainability reporting protocol is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)—a coalition of the United Nations, industry, government and civil society groups (GRI, 2006). The GRI aims to achieve uniform and consistent reporting on sustainability performance, making it as routine and comparable as financial reporting. A mining sector supplement aims to facilitate improved reporting for the mining industry (a final consultation draft was released in early 2009; GRI, 2009). Under the GRI, information is reported on a range of core and voluntary indicators covering spectrum social, economic and environmental aspects. A detailed analysis of GRI-based reporting and the mining industry is given by Mudd (2009b).
Understanding and predicting the environmental sustainability challenges associated with mining requires knowledge of historical production trends as well as the relationship between production and resource intensity. These relationships can then be used in the sustainability debate which surrounds mining, including scenario development or forecasting/backcasting studies. Although social and economic issues are obviously important in understanding the sustainability of any industry, this paper will focus on the principal mega-trends and aspects of the Australian mining industry with respect to environmental sustainability. Comments on social or economic aspects are made where possible.
This paper quantifies the principal trends of Australian mining and places these within the context of the current debate on sustainable mining. A discussion of the key Australian ‘mega-trends’ and the merits of different perspectives is then presented, leading to recommendations for improved sustainability reporting to allow a better understanding and quantification of environmentally sustainable mining.
Section snippets
Methodology
This paper summarises the results from a more detailed study (Mudd, 2009a) combined with research on resource intensity. In brief, the study was centred around the collection of a range of data sources to compile master data sets on key trends in the Australian mining industry. The principal references used were government and industry periodicals, company annual reports, technical reports, scientific monographs and other literature. Full details, data sets and references are given in Mudd
Results: key mining mega-trends
Mineral production over time is shown in Fig. 1, with black and brown coal shown in Fig. 2. Total mineral production by state and Australia is summarised in Table 1. Some states dominate in certain minerals, while several minerals are widely spread in their production between states. The production over time is often explained by seminal discoveries in Australian mining—such as Burra, Moonta-Wallaroo, Bendigo-Ballarat (and later Kalgoorlie), Mount Bischoff, Mount Morgan, Broken Hill, Mount
Energy consumption—uranium and gold mining
The compiled data sets for the energy intensity of gold and uranium mining are shown in Fig. 8. The trend line included for gold is based on the best co-efficient of determination (R2) for the entire data set. The power-type regression in Fig. 8 gives the highest R2, with individual regressions for open cut or underground not showing any substantive difference. The power-type relationship between ore grade and unit energy intensity is normal in life cycle analyses (e.g. Norgate and Rankin, 2002
Discussion
The extensive data sets and trends in Australian mining and associated sustainability analyses for resource intensity represents a unique semi-quantitative perspective on mining, and raises numerous issues with respect to sustainability and modern mining, and sustainability reporting in particular.
Summary and conclusions
Moving from a production philosophy through improved environmental management to now embracing the ‘triple bottom line’ of sustainability—social, economic and environmental components—the debate and the performance of the modern mining industry, both in Australia and globally, has clearly made important progress over recent decades. This paper has presented ongoing research into quantifying and understanding various strategic aspects of the environmental sustainability of mining in Australia,
Acknowledgements
This paper has been the product of several years of ongoing data collection and analysis. The Mineral Policy Institute are to be acknowledged for their in-kind support, as well as numerous companies for providing data and responding to requests. Various colleagues also deserve sincere thanks for their help in filling gaps in data and reviewing earlier versions of this research work. In particular, I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their frank and thoughtful comments,
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