ESG considerations have risen to the top of the industry’s agenda in recent years, with tackling climate change, safeguarding biodiversity and cultivating strong community relations no longer “nice-to-haves” but core operational priorities for companies on the cutting-edge.
The ‘S’ in ESG even has a specific term in the mining industry – ‘social license to operate,’ a measure of a project’s acceptance by local communities that has increasingly come to define what “good mining” looks like over the past two decades according to Africa-focused risk analyst Vincent Rouget. Chinese mining company CMOC is among the industry leaders that has fully embraced African governments’ rising expectations to ensure that the extraction of critical ‘green transition’ minerals generates local socioeconomic value.
