Social responsibility

The production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries is widely seen as crucial to achieve the energy transition and carbon targets, but the extraction and refining of the required critical minerals comes at a cost to local people, environment and biodiversity. 

In a new paper for international journal One Earth, researchers at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute looked at Indonesia’s nickel production and proposed how taking a broad view at the problems involved in climate solutions could help reduce those risks.

Anthropologists, lawyers, and others from the Northern Land Council (NLC) received and shared expertise with Sustainable Minerals Institute researchers in a face-to-face Indigenous Cultural Heritage Management workshop tailored to the Northern Territory context.

Lithium is an essential component of electric vehicle batteries, which are becoming more important as the world moves to a low-carbon energy future.

A survey of tailing professionals in the global mining industry has found that most have limited experience with information disclosure or community engagement.

The Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Professor Daniel Franks has been awarded $1.2 million as part of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowships scheme.

The University of Queensland delivered a 3-month program for African leaders, combining online learning with a visit to Australia.

The Australian mining industry was promised billions of dollars in the recent federal budget, but despite this funding, virtually nothing has been allocated to help communities engage with new mining activities.

Joshua Matanzima examines how the lives of people living near Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe, have been affected by a significant El Niño drought.

Government regulators responsible for some of Queensland’s largest projects will develop their Social Impact Assessment (SIA) expertise through a new partnership with the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI).  

A collaborative project to benchmark how Rio Tinto Iron Ore works with Indigenous businesses has been showcased at the Aboriginal Enterprises In Mining, Energy & Exploration (AEMEE) Conference in Cairns.