Nature-positive future | Insights from ICMM's Emma Gagen
ICMM is leading the charge in guiding the mining industry toward nature-positive outcomes, with member companies making significant developments in conservation and habitat protection. For those just beginning this journey, ICMM advises starting with immediate on-the-ground actions to support global biodiversity recovery by 2030.
Ahead of our upcoming TLS 2024 webinar on ‘Achieving a nature positive advantage’, we spoke with Emma Gagen, Director of Environment at ICMM to gain her insights on how mining companies can fulfill their nature-related commitments through various initiatives. Find out more about ICMM and their Nature: Position Statement.
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Can you provide examples of ICMM member companies that have made significant progress towards achieving their nature commitments, and what best practices can be learned from these examples?
ICMM launched a Nature Position statement, outlining member commitments to taking urgent action to halt and reverse nature loss, in January 2024. The position statement shows that best practice action on nature involves not just direct operations, but action relating to value chain, landscape-level approaches, systems transformation and governance & transparency. However, even before ICMM members articulated their leadership position on nature via the Position Statement, many members have been contributing towards a nature positive future. For example, ICMM members have already implemented a number of initiatives focused on conservation and restoration, to strengthen protection for areas of high biodiversity value, developing innovative technologies for improved seed performance during landscape revegetation, and defending important habitats from invasive species. ICMM’s new commitments will enhance these to drive performance across the industry.
“There is no one-size-fits-all indicator for biodiversity so choosing appropriate indicators to measure gains and losses in biodiversity at each site is critical. For existing operations, obtaining robust data on chosen indicators in order to set a retrospective baseline against which to measure progress towards no net loss, is somewhat challenging.”
What are some key challenges that mining companies face when trying to achieve no net loss of biodiversity by mine closure?
At its heart, a commitment to no net loss of biodiversity is a commitment from a company to examine and understand the impact of their operations on biodiversity and act to ensure that any losses are minimised, reversed and lastly balanced by gains elsewhere. There is no one-size-fits-all indicator for biodiversity so choosing appropriate indicators to measure gains and losses in biodiversity at each site is critical. For existing operations, obtaining robust data on chosen indicators in order to set a retrospective baseline against which to measure progress towards no net loss, is somewhat challenging. Finally, ensuring longevity of interventions towards no net loss or net gain of biodiversity is an area I am aware that support is needed.
What innovative approaches or technologies do you believe will be crucial for advancing mine closure practices and water management to support a nature positive future?
The biggest challenges in the industry relating to closure and water are fairly well understood and able to be addressed through proactive planning and integrating progressive closure into life-of-asset. For example, acid rock drainage and/or metal leaching, which often leads to sites needing to treat water in perpetuity, can be prevented through improved construction of mine rock stockpiles (see here). Oftentimes, it is not necessarily innovative approaches or new technologies that are needed, but a commitment to integrate progressive closure into operations, rather than delaying closure activities until after operations, that will make the biggest difference towards managing environmental risks and realising the opportunities that will contribute towards a nature positive future.
What advice would you give to mining companies that are just starting their journey towards achieving a nature positive advantage?
Firstly, great work on starting! The Global Biodiversity Framework commitments are to take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and put nature on a path to recovery by 2030, and we can’t afford to wait for more data before getting started. The Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures ‘Getting started’ guidance is a useful starting place for how to embed nature-related decisions into corporate day-to-day. For those thinking about on the ground action, the best starting place is at direct operations with the goal of achieving no net loss or net gain of biodiversity relative to a 2020 baseline. From there, look to partner with others on catchment or landscape-level action towards nature restoration and recovery beyond the direct mining footprint. For those already advancing in direct operations and landscape-level action, start exploring what can be done in your supply and distribution chains to halt and reverse nature loss, as well as more broadly via collaborations to catalyse change beyond our industry.