Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
mismanagements and from several cases of egregious disregard for social
and economic impacts on the local communities hosting these facilities
in developing countries. Realizing the need to address their poor public
image in a collective manner, the mining sector formed in 2001 the Inter-
national Mining and Metals Council (ICMM). The first act of ICMM
was to develop, collaboratively with International Institute for Sustain-
able Development, a Code of Conduct for Mining and Metals Industry,
and to require all its members to formally adopt the Code. Furthermore,
the members were required to produce annual sustainability reports as
the means of demonstrating compliance with the Codes. The Council
chose the GRI Guidelines (G2 version) as the reporting framework
because of its requirement that both the guidelines and subsequent
reports use a broadly based multi-stakeholder process. “At that time
the mining industry had no choice but to engage with all their stake-
holders - local communities, activists, global NGOs governments, and
others - solve its many 'on the ground' problems” remarked an ICMM
executive we interviewed. Furthermore, GRI had both the reputation
and the experience with conducting such multi-stakeholder processes.
In 2003, ICMM went a step further by taking the initiative to develop
a Sector Supplement for mining and metals, to be used by all its mem-
bers. The Supplement was developed by a twenty-member international
working group - co-chaired by the ICMM and GRI representatives -
which included representatives from ten mining companies, Oxfam
International, World Wildlife Fund, IFC/World Bank, National Union
of Mineworkers of South Africa, two international socially responsi-
ble investment firms, one representative of an indigenous community
in South America, and several technical experts and NGOs. This was a
major step in reaching out between traditional adversaries, given that the
NGOs in the group had a history of adversarial political actions directed
at some of the participating companies. Over the next six months, the
group produced numerous discussion papers and held three intense two-
day meetings to reach consensus on the appropriate social, environ-
mental, and economic indicators of sustainability performance. This was
