Delegates of TC82 Mining approve change of title and scope of SC7 to ‘Sustainable Mining and Mine Closure’ Update No 9 to AusIMM members ISO/TC 82/SC 7

Dr Corinne Unger, MAusIMM CP(Env) representing AusIMM on the Australian Mirror Committee of SC7

18 Oct 2023 · 800 words, 3 min read

ISO/TC 82/SC 7 refers to the International Organization for Standardization: Mine closure and reclamation management. See more information here: https://www.iso.org/committee/5052041.html

International meeting of TC82

An International Meeting of TC82 Mining, its Sub-Committees and Working Groups was held 11-15 September 2023 near Bonn in Germany. Meetings were held over four days with the final day being a mine tour of RWE’s Hambach Mine. A delegation from Standards Australia participated in the meeting, comprised of Tania Laurencont as Head of Delegation, Darren Murphy, Corinne Unger and Peter Waggitt.

Participants at Wirtgen for Day 1 of meetings.

Participants in rehabilitated overburden landform Sophienhoehe, Hambach mine.

Change of scope of SC7

At the request of the chair of the TC82 Technical Committee, SC7 was asked to broaden the scope of their Sub-Committee beyond mine closure to include sustainable mining. The chair of SC7 in France engaged with the various chairs and members of SC7 over 6 months to revise the scope and discuss with TC82. At the international TC82 plenary, and following discussion, the scope was approved with minor amendments.

What about the two Task Forces?

During the SC7 plenary it was agreed that the Water Management Task Force (TF2) be closed due to inaction. Early this year, the Social Transition Task Force (TF1) circulated a New Work Item Proposal that was not accepted and the Task Force was put on hold while the scope of SC7 was being revised. Now that the scope change has been approved it was agreed that the Social Transition New Work Item Proposal should be revisited, rescoped and circulated in a ballot in 2024 to canvass interest and attract participants.

Christophe Didier, who heads up SC7 will initiate a review of the Strategy for SC7 in light of the broader scope. Volunteers can offer to instigate new standards at any time. Via consensus at international meetings, new Task Forces can be set up to work on a New Work Item Proposal. Such proposals must then be accepted by an international ballot of participating nations, before they proceed to Working Group (WG) stage and subsequent standard development. Any questions about the process, please contact Tania Laurencont.

Is the Managing Mining Legacies Standard finished?

As Convenor and Project Lead of this Working Group, I am pleased to say this has now been published. Please see Part 1 here and Part 2 here. The Managing Mining Legacies standard has been developed in two parts with input from the entire Working Group and with concentrated efforts by a core writing team of myself, Tania Laurencont Australia, and Peter Goerke-Mallet, Germany with Project Management support from Aude Wenzinger at Standards Australia. Thank you.

WG3 held a virtual international meeting in February 2023 to finalise Part 1 of the Managing Mining Legacies standard in preparation for FDIS (Final Draft International Standard). This FDIS was then circulated for ballot and was accepted with minor editorial changes. Part 2 was completed last year and held until Part 1 was completed so they could be published together. During the international meeting we discussed feedback from the ballot and how to publicise the standard once published.

In advance of the international meeting, a poster was prepared by C Unger, T Laurencont and P Goerke-Mallet to give a visual overview of the Managing Mining Legacies standard. This poster and a short paper were accepted by the Wismut Symposium WISSYM 2023 organising committee for inclusion in the Dresden Symposium 25-28 September during which there was an opportunity to engage in discussion about the standard with other mining legacy managers, governments, consultants and academics. Now that it's published, this concludes a process that was initiated at the Shanghai TC82/SC7 international meeting in 2018.

What else is going on?

Consultation processes managed by Standards Australia this year include two proposals related to mining. The first from AFNOR France on Speciality metals and minerals proposed a New Field of Technical Activity for a Technical Committee, and from DIN Germany a New Work Item Proposal (NWIP) for Sustainable Raw Materials. The purpose of this standard is to specify criteria for sustainable raw materials along industry best practices and is intended to be used for mineral, raw iron and non-iron-metals. It is applicable to the full value chain of all raw materials, from extraction (mining) to processing, to refining, to final product manufacturing, thereby including the full upstream and downstream value chain. A separate update on these proposals will be provided.

Next international meeting

The SC7 Secretariat, Dukmin Kim announced that KATS, the South Korean Standards organisation, will host the October 2024 international meeting of TC82 and its Sub-Committees.