Social responsibility

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.

The urgency to provide metals for the energy transition is putting pressure on the legal safeguards and approval processes governing mining, according to University of Queensland (UQ) researchers, and the consequences could compromise sustainable development.

The ‘lithium triangle’ houses nearly 60% of the world’s lithium resources, and because of its use in clean energy technologies (like EV batteries), the region is experiencing a significant increase in global demand. However, lithium extraction in South America often occurs in ecologically sensitive high-altitude salt flats, often on ancestral Indigenous territories, adjacent to Indigenous or rural communities.

Improving the governance of natural resources will be the focus for five new Higher Degree Research students recently recruited by the Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining.

A team from the Sustainable Minerals Institute’s Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining has launched a new teaching and learning resource promoting awareness and understanding of the rapidly changing low-carbon energy transition dynamics across the Arctic.

On Friday 29 July, Brumadinho justice campaigner Angélica Amanda da Silva Andrade delivered an unwearied address at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute to talk about the social cost of tailings management.

Global demand for energy transition metals to support a clean energy transition is increasing pressure to extract more terrestrial and seabed minerals and metals from the Pacific. So what is the risk of the Pacific becoming a sacrifice zone in the name of a global energy transition?

A new information hub on mine closure planning and post-mining transition for local communities and other stakeholders has been launched by a team of researchers and staff from The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis is already a human catastrophe. And it could also prove disastrous for climate action by slowing the global energy transition.

The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management establishes an unprecedented global standard on tailings management applicable to existing and future tailings facilities.