As institutional investors in the mining industry, and in the absence of such a TSF register or common public reporting standards, the Investor Mining & Tailings Safety Initiative requested data from the global mining industry on each of their TSFs.
This letter was sent to a broad group of companies - those likely to operate tailings facilities.
Following discussions with investor partners, the number of companies contacted has increased from the number announced in April 2019. (This has led to a change in the % of recorded responses below).
As of 5th May 2021, 44 of the top 50 mining companies have made disclosures, leading to information about thousands of individual tailings dams/facilities being made public on company websites.
Over 86% of the mining industry (specifically, 86% of publicly listed mining companies by market capitalisation) have responded, and all 23 of 23 publicly owned companies that are members of the International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM) responded and fully disclosed tailings dams/facilities.
Of the 721 companies contacted, the breakdown of responders were:
- 341 responded (representing 47% of the companies contacted)
- 188 confirmed they did not have tailings facilities (representing 26%)
- 114 confirmed they did have tailings facilities and made a full disclosure
- 39 companies have not yet published their disclosure on a website or have asked for extra time to complete their disclosure
- 183 have not yet responded (25% of companies).
- 197 did not respond, but it has been since confirmed that the company does not have relevant facilities (27%).
Breaking down these figures further for the mining sector only, preliminary analysis indicates:
- 44 of the world’s top 50 largest mining companies responded
- 95% of the top 50 largest mining companies by market capitalisation responded
- 86% of the industry (by market capitalization) responded
- All 23 out of 23 publicly listed members of the International Council of Mining & Metals responded.
A Press Release on Company Disclosures is available here (17 June 2019)
For a list of company disclosures, please click here or email [email protected].
Note: The total number of companies contacted has increased since the initial, 5 April 2019, disclosure request. If you represent a company with responsibility for Tailings Storage Facilities, but have not received our request, please contact [email protected]
The new disclosures generated by this request have been gathered and presented in the Global Tailings Portal, which freely displays details of over 1800 facilities, and has been a useful resource for academic work on the topic of tailings (e.g. see here).Â