Suchergebnisse

Purpose
– The aim of the study is to propose a model for conducting socially responsible operations in the mining industry, thriving to reach and sustain world-class standards in regard to profitability and environmental sustainability. The model uses a framework built upon a set of best practices in social responsibility by some of the largest mining companies in Peru.


Design/methodology/approach
– The methodology adopted emphasizes the scrutiny of best practices among 92 initiatives undertaken by 10 companies – 5 large and 5 mid-sized companies as measured by the ratio "amount of investment" – which contributed most to prevent social conflict escalation. Data set received input from in-depth interviews to managers in charge of social affairs as well as from interviews to social constituents – beneficiaries and local authorities. Content analysis supported data processing and analysis of results.


Findings
– Main findings comprise the following: distinct schemes for managing social responsibility in dependence upon impact evaluation indicators were found, which help to organize three models for conducting mining operations: traditional mining, up-to-date mining, and sustainability-oriented mining; evidence of distinct pathways undergone by large- and mid-sized companies in their quest to up-scale their corporate social responsibility profile.


Originality/value
– Overall results from this study suggest the feasibility to modeling the social responsibility of mining companies in accordance to three dimensions – social, economic, and environmental – that draw from the analysis of best practices undertaken by large- and mid-sized companies.

Abstract Drastic measures are required to meet the standards of the Paris Agreement and limit the increase of global average temperatures well below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels. Mining activities are typically considered as unsustainable but, at the same time, metals such as cobalt and lithium are essential to sustain the energy transition. Several sustainability goals defined by the United Nations (UN) require large quantities of raw materials. Exploration and extractives activities are required in order to contribute to meeting sustainability standards. Future sourcing of metals will need to implement procedures that go well beyond current ecological, economic, and social requirements and practices. In this paper we assess the usual sustainability criteria and how they apply to the extractives sector. Sustainability can only be achieved if one accepts that the natural capital can be substituted by other forms of capital (so called weak concept of sustainability). Sourcing the raw materials increasingly demanded by our societies will need transparent and inclusive stakeholder participation as well as a holistic understanding of the impact of extractives activities to reach this weak sustainability status. Our analysis shows that the sustainability of mining cannot be reached without harmonized political instruments and investment policies that take the three pillars of environmental, economic, and social sustainability as a major priority.

This article presents reflections on the "Global Mining Cluster", defined as the worldwide political coalition of transnational mining corporations organized to keep territories open to mining interests and counteract criticisms that decry the social and environmental devastation caused by mega-mining. This Cluster through the International Council of Mining & Minerals, the organizing hub for mining policy whose philosophical foundation is the "Global Mining Initiative" works to achieve two broad objectives to produce "strategic intelligence that helps influence the political classes and institutions of national states, while elaborating protocols and techniques for imposing "horizons of coercion" on regions and local communities and second developing a new planetary public discourse based on the announcement of "sustainable mining" which presents the Global Mining Cluster as a producer of "social goodness" while simultaneously legitimizing interventions by its agents to control daily life in communities and regions. To illustrate this argument we examine the operation of the Global Mining Cluster in the Mexican case.

Though women all over the world toil as miners, and have done for centuries, mining is seen as a quintessentially masculine endeavour. Gendering the Field puts a definitive stop to the gender-blindness of such a view. We have Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, the editor and a contributor to this book, to thank for this corrective move. For many years Lahiri-Dutt has championed the cause of women in mining. She has challenged the preoccupation of minority world feminist scholarship with women living in mining communities and argued for more analysis of women working at the actual mine-site. Her interest in women in mining grew out of important research into artisanal small-scale mining on the coal fields of West Bengal. Here women to this day work with men scavenging for coal, wheeling it to market in improvised vehicles, living alongside their pits and conducting family life in the interstices of mine work. Such a world seems far from the large-scale mines that occupy a privileged place in the global imaginary. In our resource hungry world we are familiar with the huge excavators operated by well-paid men gouging out minerals, moving mountains and transforming landscapes in a matter of years. Or the construction of ever deeper underground mines where sophisticated computer models guide the operations of advanced machinery 'manned' by fly-in/fly-out miners working 12 hour shifts. To this technology intensive, heroic, and above all masculine landscape Lahiri-Dutt has added a panorama of poor women and men using rudimentary tools to produce vast amounts of mineral output, outside the regulatory embrace of union organisation and health and safety laws. Exposés of the extent of this artisanal mining 'industry', such as those by Lahiri-Dutt for India, have forced a long overdue shift in international mining policy and planning. Widening our perspective so that we can see what is in front of us differently is one of the key contributions of feminist scholarship. Another is adherence to an action oriented mode of research. No matter how theoretical, empirical or pragmatic, feminist scholarship seeks to change the world in which we live, bringing greater dignity and justice to those who experience discrimination. Lahiri-Dutt's research has done this for small-scale artisanal miners. But she has not stopped there. From this situated research experience she has embarked on an impressive action-oriented engagement with the mining industry as a whole. Gendering the Field is a testament to her determination to leave no shaft in these complex workings unexplored. The authors she has collected together in this volume explore crucial gender issues across the board of large and small mining operations in North America, Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Chapters include perspectives of indigenous women and women in support industries such as sex work and other input suppliers. All contributors are concerned to address the community level development implications of mineral extraction. The collection offers a refreshing engagement with contemporary gender and development theorisations and their application in the 'field' of mining. While there is a strong element of criticism of the status quo in the mining industry with respect to the treatment of women, there is also an even-handed appreciation of the attempts being made by corporations and governments to address inequalities and listen to the concerns of women, particularly indigenous women, involved in mining operations. The collection contains both healthy scepticism and generous acknowledgement of the advancements made in the name of sustainable development in mining areas. Perhaps the most difficult issue confronting social scientists concerned about gender equality, economic justice and sustainability in the global mining industry is that of the non-renewable and thus inherently unsustainable nature of mining activity. As with many political victories, the timing for women is all wrong. Having been ousted from underground mines as the industrial revolution gathered pace in the northern hemisphere minority world, women have only relatively recently been accepted back into the mining workforce, just as the mining industry has become perhaps the major political hurdle to addressing the social and environmental challenges posed by climate change. And in majority world nations where mineral riches are increasingly being exploited on a large scale for international export, mining development offers women and men alike a real chance to get ahead. At the same time, there is greater realisation of the devastating consequences for proximate ecologies and global environments of such scaled-up operations. What's more, there is little evidence that the exploitation of mineral riches in poor nations leads to greater wellbeing. So, as many of this volume's authors admit, development itself is under question. What might sustainability mean in connection with the international mining industry? This important book provides an answer to this question by outlining ways of thinking about the community livelihoods that might be supported alongside minerals development. Shifting the centre of attention from sustaining a controversial 'development' to sustaining the livelihoods of women and men in surrounding communities opens up the space to allow a range of practical initiatives. For example, procurement practices can distribute the economic benefits of mining to a wider region and to women, and negotiated agreements can safeguard the spiritual and social needs of indigenous communities living in the vicinity of mining activities. There needs to be many more strategies for transforming a non-renewable activity that destroys landscapes into renewable economic practices that support livelihoods and replenish ecologies. As women enter the mining industry in greater numbers and as their longstanding contributions in artisanal small-scale activities gain greater recognition it is timely to raise these important and hard issues of planetary survival. While there is no necessary connection between women and sustainability, it remains a commonplace observation that where women are able to survive well, their families and communities survive well too. The combined attention to gender and sustainable livelihoods of this volume signals an important turning point, not only for mining industry scholarship, but also hopefully for minerals development policy. We now know that mining companies can attend to gender equality and still perform well in the marketplace. They can also support community livelihoods and compete in the cut and thrust of a competitive industry. Perhaps the next challenge is to see how they can also become responsible and reparative environmental citizens and survive as businesses. The evidence provided in this volume allows us some hope for the future.

Increasingly, organisations are interested in managing corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability as part of their operations management (OM). OM practices and research must respond to demands to address sustainability. This response is triggered by climate change and other environmental concerns, the well-being of workers and communities, and other broad social demands. We define sustainable OM as the pursuit of social, economic and environmental objectives - the triple bottom line [TBL] - within operations of a specific firm and operational linkages that extend beyond the firm

Traditionally, the Net Present Value method has been used to compare diverging investment strategies. However, valuating crypto-projects with fiat-based currency is confusing due to extreme coin appreciation rates as compared to fiat interest rates. Here, we provide a net present value method based on using crypto-coin as the underlying asset. Using this method, we compare buy-and-hold versus mine-and-hold; we also provide a sensitivity analysis of profitability.

This book focuses on understanding the status quo of sustainable practices in industry operations from an emerging economy perspective, presenting various practices in India. In order to offer a balance between theory and practice, it provides guidelines for applying models to achieve the goal of sustainability in this competitive environment. The chapters include theoretical perspectives, models and empirical evidence on sustainable practices from Indian industries. The book also presents a scholarly perspective on sustainable operations from various researchers and practitioners in India for a global audience in academia and industry.