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The industry must confront its dark past of disasters to attract new investors and offer project stakes to local towns to improve
The industry must confront its dark past of disasters to attract new investors and offer project stakes to local towns to improve environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Those were some of the recommendations flowing from a panel on ESG sponsored by TMX Group at The Northern Miner’s Canadian Mining Symposium this month in London.
The main events affecting the general public’s attitude to mining are tailings disasters, human rights abuses, harassment and artisanal mining conflicts, panelist Kevin D’Souza, chief sustainability officer at Denver-based Resource Capital Funds, told the session on Oct. 12.
“We’re in an industry that’s made a lot of mistakes,” D’Souza said. “We have to own that. We’ve got to talk about it and say here’s what we’re doing about it. If we keep avoiding that conversation, we’re not going to attract new investments.”
The difficulty of financing projects is a leading concern among juniors as commodities such as gold outperform the shares of companies that dig it up. Some project developers view ESG as a way to improve the mining industry’s negative image and draw investors away from strong sectors such as technology stocks.
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