In December 2020, the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative wrote to the mining industry, asking over 300 companies to publicly support and adopt the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (the “Standard”).
We asked companies to:
- Adopt the Standard for all relevant operations;
- Provide a date by when they will achieve compliance in all operations.
- Publish this confirmation on the company website
The updated figures (as of February 2023) are available in the table below and here.
By 8 April 2022, 45% of the mining companies contacted (65% by market capitalisation) have agreed to at least review the Standard and its applicability across their operations, while 50% have yet to respond. One company stated that they will not implement the Standard.
Mining Association of Canada (MAC) members have been treated separately. We have asked them to confirm conformance with MAC’s Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) framework, which does include tailings management, and undertake a gap analysis between its requirements and those of the Standard.
The Church of England Pensions Board amended its proxy voting policies in 2022 to include a provision to vote against the Chair of any company if they have not committed to, at least, review the Standard with a view to implementing it. Other investors are considering similar steps towards companies not supporting the Standard.
Please find a full list of mining company responses to the Standard here (as of February 2023)
We will update the list regularly. If you are a company representative and feel that your company has been listed or categorised incorrectly, please contact [email protected]