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Land stewardship is not a well-known term; however, for the mining industry it is becoming increasingly critical.

The concept of land stewardship is intended to address what has been described as the next big environmental issue – how to maximise the efficient use of the same land by competing stakeholders, and how to minimise the degradation of natural capital and damage to ‘ecosystem services’.

Ecosystem services such as fresh water, climate regulation and erosion control, are provided free by nature. They are essential to humanity as well as the mining industry and, given the extended timescales over which a mine operates, they need to be protected – or replacing them could prove expensive or impossible.

Yet according to Cambridge University, 60% of global ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably by mankind. The UN has estimated that in 2008, the economic cost of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation was US$2-4.5 trillion – or 3.3-7.5% of global GDP. Assuming ‘business as usual’, global environmental costs were projected to reach US$28.6 trillion by 2050, equivalent to 18% of GDP.

Our industry is not blameless and it can play an important role. We irrevocably change the land we use; mines require large quantities of water; and a mine is temporary and will eventually close. Unfortunately, the mining industry does not have a good track record of successful or responsible mine closures, and our reputation has suffered accordingly.

The metals and minerals that mining produces make modern life possible. The challenge is to produce them in a way which minimises the impact on the environment and creates a lasting positive legacy. A mine can be a catalyst for all sorts of development opportunities within a community. It can bring jobs and prosperity, schools, healthcare and infrastructure such as roads, running water, electricity and telecommunications.

In order to ensure their own sustainability, mining companies rely on access to new resource deposits. Yet different stakeholders – and especially local communities – often value different services coming from the same ecosystem. The miner therefore must demonstrate that the benefits they bring outweigh the potential impact to the ecosystem – in both the short and the long term.

This is where progressive land stewardship and the implementation of systems and processes that look at the life and closure of a mine in an integrated way, become an imperative.

Anglo American has been working on this concept for some while. We have a rich history of operating in developing countries and we developed a Mine Closure Toolbox between 2005 and 2008 to help our operations with their long-term mine closure planning. The focus is on planning for sustainability beyond mine closure, supporting sustainable development and leaving behind a positive environmental and social legacy.

The latest version of the Toolbox – which we have made available to the industry as a whole – increases our focus on community engagement and on the importance of designing, planning and operating a mine with closure in mind, right from the outset.

Anglo American’s approach insists that all closure plans are site-specific, include plans for land and water management, and are developed in consultation with the stakeholders. Every community and region has its own needs and these may well change over time. Our plans must adapt accordingly. One size does not fit all.

It is not always possible to put the land back to how it was, and that isn’t always the best option anyway. Sometimes it is better to make the most of the new infrastructure and use the land differently, in order to support alternative development in the region.

We believe that the decision about what closure should look like – the closure vision – does not belong to mining companies. Rather, it belongs to the people that will remain in the area after the mine closes.

The objective should be to leave behind self-sufficient and self-sustaining communities, whose future is brighter for the mine having been there than if it had never been there at all.

Samantha Hoe-Richardson, head of sustainable development and energy, Anglo American
 

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is urging the British public to back a new email campaign pressing major high street brands to sign up to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

While many big high street brands have signed up - over 80 including H&M, Zara, Primark and Next - there are some notable exceptions. The TUC campaign, Who's Hanging Their Workers Out To Dry, specifically references River Island, Matalan, Bench, Bank Fashion, Peacocks, Jane Norman, Republic and Mexx.

The Accord follows April's Rana Plaza disaster in which over 1200 people died. The agreement commits companies to fund an independent safety inspection body that will involve workers in the process, through their unions, and to make long term deals with suppliers, offering more secure employment and training for workers. 

Consumers can sign up to the online campaign via the TUC's Going to Work website.

Joint venture company MeyGen is to begin installation of the largest tidal energy project in Europe. The 86MW tidal energy project has just received the official greenlight from the Scottish Government.

The project is located in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth off the north coast of Caithness, home to one of Europe’s greatest tidal resources. It is the largest tidal stream energy project to be awarded consent in Europe and constitutes the first phase of a site that could eventually yield up to 398MW.

MeyGen plans to build an initial demonstration array of up to 6 turbines, with construction starting in early 2014 and turbines commissioned in 2015. This initial array will provide valuable environmental data for the subsequent phases and the wider tidal energy industry.

Ed Rollings, environment & consents manager of MeyGen, commented:  “The Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters region is an internationally important area for wildlife and we are committed to continuing research with interested parties to ensure that the exploitation of this clean, predictable and sustainable energy resource is done so in a manner that does not have a detrimental effect on the species and habitats in the area.”

Dan Pearson, ceo of MeyGen, added: “While there is still much work to be done, the prospects for delivering the first tidal energy array in the Pentland Firth, thereby establishing a stepping stone to commercialising tidal energy, are promising”.

MeyGen is a joint venture between investment bank Morgan Stanley (45%), independent power generator International Power (45%) and tidal technology provider Atlantis Resources Corporation (10%)

Picture courtesy: © James Hearn | Dreamstime Stock Photos

More consumers than ever are looking for environmentally-friendly logos on packaging finds a new global report by packaging giant Tetra Pak. The survey reveals that it’s a top concern for 37% of consumers and that consumers in emerging markets are most engaged with the issue.

The report, the company’s 5th bi-annual environment survey, also shows that recycling remains a fundamental expectation of both consumers and food industry stakeholders. It also registers a significant rise in the attitude towards renewable materials, driven by the recent development of new technologies. They rank the use of bio-based materials as one of the most important environmental trends shaping the future of beverage packaging.

Today, 54% of consumers trust environmental labels, compared with 37% in 2011. One in five consumers in the survey recognise the Forest Stewardship Council logo, with most able to associate it with sustainable forestry.

 “The findings of this year’s report reinforce the importance of putting environment at the heart of our strategic agenda,” says Dennis Jönsson, Tetra Pak president and ceo. “We have set firm commitments to reduce our environmental footprint across the value chain, to develop sustainable products and to increase recycling rates; and we are making good progress towards the goals that we have set for ourselves in each of these important areas.”

Read the full story in the October issue of Ethical Performance.
 

Submitted by Kelly Eisenhardt

By Kelly Eisenhardt

Anyone who keeps up with current events in the corporate social responsibility world is well aware of the tragedies that continue to affect the four million garment workers in Bangladesh.

In the last year, the fires at the Hameem, Tazreen, and Tung Hai factories have all resulted in the loss of many lives. With 26 deaths in Hameem, 117 deaths in Tazreen, and eight deaths in Tung Hai, Bangladesh’s people are calling for change.

Brands Held Accountable

As cries for change erupt, it is the overwhelming loss of life in the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza building in Dhaka though that is sending shockwaves through the local community and industries abroad. Over 1,100 people are dead and more potentially lost forever in the rubble. Search and rescue is over and negotiations for death payments and work loss have begun.

From all that has been written, we know brands are being held accountable. Factories are blaming brands and the Bangladesh government is doing too little, too late, while the Bangladesh people suffer and mourn.

How could such a tragedy have been prevented? For how long did such risk exist? Were there any tools, processes, or mechanisms in place that could have forewarned of the tragedies?

The Role of Audits in Preventing Disaster

And what about the audits that were done at these sites? Audits are being discounted as useless and as a waste of time by anyone willing to speak publicly. Knowing that audits have a crucial role in creating a baseline for measurement and future indicators, I decided it was time to interview one of the people in the heat of the debate.

Below is an excerpt from an interview with Avedis Seferian, CEO of WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production), an independent, objective, non-profit team of global social compliance experts dedicated to promoting safe, lawful, humane, and ethical manufacturing around the world through certification and education.

Kelly Eisenhardt: As you know, this is a complex problem and many out there want to hold the brands almost solely responsible. What are your thoughts on that?

Avedis Seferian: Well, there’s a natural human inclination to try and assign blame to a specific factor to simplify things. There are a lot of stakeholders in this and it’s unfair to place all the blame on the brands. But looking at the brands, it’s fair to say there are ramifications to their approach. 

One thing that has clearly emerged is the need for them to ensure greater visibility into their supply chain. When you are so far down, the brand doesn’t always have control over where the order goes or how the requirements get met. As things stand, contractors may be the ones with the authority and decision-making power over a subcontractor. I think this will need to be evaluated more in the future.

Is it all bad auditing practices and are auditors to blame?

Audits are valuable and play a role but all stakeholders need to understand the limits of the role. Too many people expect more out of social audits than what they are meant to do. Audits are information-gathering mechanisms. You can only gather information within the scope of the audit. So blaming social auditors for some of these things is unfair.

Social auditors are not structural engineers, so social audits do not cover structural integrity checks on a building from an engineering perspective. Those who think poorly about social auditing practices are quarreling about desired outcomes and not about the audits themselves.

Audits are meant to set baselines and gather information against those. They are not, by themselves, tools for social advocacy. Nonetheless, they have certainly had an impact in raising awareness about those baselines. In fact, even the most ardent critics of social audits will have to recognize that, just as an example, incidences of child labor have declined within the global garment sector as the social audit industry has grown.

Re-evaluating How Audits Are Done

Do you see less audits being performed in the future or more? Should auditors be expanding the parameters of what is collected?

I certainly don’t see the audits becoming less important in the light of these tragedies, but there will be a necessary reevaluation of how they’re done.

It’s easy to draw a parallel with what happened to financial auditing in the wake of Enron. That auditing industry is not dead as a result, nor is it seen as a farce. It’s an important part of our economies and capitalist system. The fact that there were audit failures in Enron did not render the entire audit exercise moot.

Similarly, factories with problems do not render the social audit exercise itself useless. As I said earlier, an audit is an information gathering effort. In the past, the building’s structural integrity had not been part of the social audit; maybe in the future that will add another area of expertise to auditing.

From Audits To Action

But regardless of what information is gathered, the audit itself doesn’t change the factory; it’s what is done with the audit that matters. When brands get the audit results, they need to ask, “What are we going to do about it?” We all know factories are dynamic places; they will never be perfect environments. Good audits ask the question, “Is this the kind of factory that, when problems arise, has enough knowledge and capacity to solve the issue?”

That is what WRAP does.

We ask who manages social compliance, who is responsible, how are the plans executed, what is the process side? Thousands of things happen in a factory. You have to try and be satisfied that after you leave, the factory has to be able to take care of itself. That’s when an audit can be most useful – when it gives you insight into the facility’s management systems.

Collaborating On Audits

How can brands collaborate and share audits in the future regarding safety and social audit data?

We are seeing a growing trend in this director, but there are challenges to collaborating, with real questions and apprehensions remaining about who owns the information in the first place and some lingering concerns about where sharing information may cross the line into collusion and antitrust governance issues.

WRAP audit reports do not include pricing information or data that veer toward such violations. We strictly talk about health and safety, worker issues, and pre-competitive data. It is getting harder and harder to sustain a case against sharing, when the benefits of doing so are so evident: reduced audit burdens and, more importantly, reduced risk of tragic events happening. So we are certainly seeing a steady march toward more sharing.

In practice, it comes down to establishing trust.

Companies that share audits usually do not do so merely on an assessment of each other’s system; rather, they do so based on personally knowing each other. They know each other’s compliance teams, share factories, rub elbows at conferences and form relationships that allow trust to build.

No business worth its salt will simply take someone’s word and will always need to do its own verification. In reality, they won’t share simply due to similar systems, but by seeing such systems in action and knowing the personalities behind them. Obviously, it takes time to create a strong level of trust.

About the Author

Kelly Eisenhardt is executive director of environmental programs for Fair Factories Clearinghouse (FFC), a New York-based non-profit that uses technology to enable cost-effective, well-informed, ethical business transactions and continuous improvements in global workplaces. For more information, email her at kellyeisenhardt@gmail.com or visit www.fairfactories.org.

Some of the wisest advice I have ever received came from my uncle, my father’s only brother. It wasn’t the kind of advice you would expect from a scientist, and certainly not one who had managed to negotiate the pitfalls of full-time, regular employment for more than 30 years with very few office changes. Still, it has stuck with me throughout my life as I have negotiated my own concept of what it means to find self-fulfillment in an employment world that rarely, if ever endorses happiness as a premise for work.

“You know, your dad and I are pretty lucky,” he told me one day. The long pause always told me that he was about to impart words I should listen to.

“Both of us have careers that we enjoy, that made us want to get up and go to work. Not many people can claim that.”

I can’t honestly say that I understood the depth of that message that day; after all, I was only about 13 years old. But I remember thinking that if two scientists in the same field, in two opposite ends of the career spectrum could put happiness first, well, maybe there was something to that premise that an aspiring writer could use.

My Uncle Norman, who is now in his nineties, wouldn’t at all be surprised to hear that some researchers are now suggesting that happiness – not profit and money – should be the guiding economic principle in our society. Put another way: we should listen to what makes people happy when making policies that shape their futures.

In 2011 the United Nations passed a resolution encouraging countries to take happiness seriously as a factor in policy making. Nations were encouraged to measure populations not just on things like income, health, numbers of people in a household, etc. but the level of an individual’s happiness.

In 2012, the first report on world happiness was released, which looked at which countries had the happiest people, and what appeared to support their contentment. The researchers looked at major influencers like health, income, having someone to rely upon, perceived ability to control one’s life, perceived corruption in their countries or communities, etc. Interestingly, generosity was also counted as a major indicator.

Denmark took the lead as the happiest country in 2012, followed by Norway, Switzerland, Netherlands and Sweden.

The 2013 report delves deeper into what are the major influencers that keep people from feeling happy, and why there is such a large spread in global happiness.

The researchers found that health – mental health in particular – has a major influence over global happiness levels.

“(M)ental illness is the single most important cause of unhappiness,” the researchers say in the report, “but is largely ignored by policy makers … About 10% of the world’s population suffers from clinical depression or crippling anxiety disorders. They are the biggest single cause of disability and absenteeism, with huge costs in terms of misery and economic waste.”

The report is underpinned by the view that unhappy populations don’t just make for miserable work forces, but higher economic costs for the country in the form of more health care, more need for support services, inefficiency in work places, etc. Increasing happiness, however, by encouraging policies that allow, encourage and make it easier for individuals to reach personal goals and happier lifestyles results in a win-win situation for both the nation and the individual.

The results were measured over a span of 2010-2012 and compared with previous findings from 2005-2007. Interestingly, United States came in #17 in 2012, below Mexico, the United Emirates and Israel. The research also showed that national happiness in the U.S. has fallen a bit since the first survey, which the researchers point out were taken as the financial crisis of 2008 was looming.

Some countries have begun developing ways to measure happiness nationally. Bhutan, which developed its own gross national happiness index, has been a leader in this field, with Brazil, New Zealand and the United Kingdom following suit.

Sadly, the U.S. got a number of down-checks in this report. The researchers noted that the U.S. had no national method for determining happiness, unlike Mexico, the U.K. and the E.U. They also noted that “the U.S. has substantially raised incomes over the course of several decades without raising subjective measures of happiness …” On the other hand, Jacksonville Florida has been measuring quality of life indicators for more than two decades.

It's also interesting to note that each of the top 10 countries mentioned in this report have universal health care provisions. Studies done in a number of these countries, including Denmark, Sweden and Israel, including this report, have suggested that the security of a dependable and affordable health care system is an important factor in national and global happiness.

Does that mean that the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")could actually be good for America, and Americans' overall happiness? That's a premise that will not doubt be tested next year, as the country joins the ranks of nations that support universal healthcare access for all of their citizens.

Photo courtesy of   Camdiluv.

Sky has been named the Corporate of the Year at the annual Beyond Sport Awards for its Sky Sports Living for Sport initiative.?

The Beyond Sport Awards, now in its fifth year, recognise leading initiatives across the world that make a difference to people's lives through sport.?

Through its partnership with Youth Sport Trust, Sky Sports Living for Sport uses sports stars, including Sky ambassadors David Beckham, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Darren Campbell, and sports skills to improve the lives of 30,000 young people in a third of secondary schools each year.?

Now in its 10th year, the scheme raises the aspirations and improves the life skills of young people. Participants show an increase in self-confidence and improved attitudes to learning and well-being as a result.

Bella Vuillermoz, director of the Bigger Picture at Sky, commented: "We are so proud of Sky Sports Living for Sport and the difference it makes to the lives of young people. It's brilliant to have the initiative recognised in this way. The award is a huge credit not just to our team of 78 athlete mentors and our brilliant partner, the Youth Sport Trust, but also to the thousands of teachers who we work hand in hand with each year."

The initiative is now available to Irish schools with a goal of encouraging thousands of young people across a third of secondary schools in Ireland to take part within the next three years.?
 

American singer Christina Aguilera is backing Yum! Brands annual world hunger relief initiative.

The pop superstar recently visited Rwanda where she saw the effects of hunger first hand and helped beneficiaries of the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) nutrition programmes. Aguilera served food to hungry children who walk miles to and from school each day to receive a hot meal. She also traveled to a refugee camp that houses more than 18,000 people living in small man-made huts.

Aguilera’s isong, “Light Up the Sky,” plays throughout a new World Hunger Relief public service announcement that airs on US television and online this month.

Yum! Brands’ World Hunger Relief effort is the world’s largest private sector hunger relief initiative. The initiative began in 2007 in an effort to raise awareness, volunteerism and funds for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and other hunger relief agencies.

In addition to the new public service announcement, Aguilera is raising awareness for the issue through new World Hunger Relief posters at KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants with the quote: “Together, we have the power to save lives and move from hunger to hope.”

Global paints and coatings giant AkzoNobel has collaborated on a UK project looking at the viability of recycling household paint.

In the UK alone, over 300m litres of paint are bought each year, with as much as 15% going to waste, in the majority of cases ending up in landfill.

Part of the project saw AkzoNobel and design agency Seymourpowell consult with two existing paint-recycling enterprises - Newlife Paints based in Ford, West Sussex (currently sold in 170 B&Q stores around the UK), and Castle RePaint Scotland, a social enterprise based in Fife.

As part of a project, design agency Seymourpowell has a made an educational video highlighting the possibilities, as well as the benefits, of paint recycling, and also identified a completely new technology to help scale and speed up the paint recycling process for greater business viability.

Watch the video here

Read the full story in the October issue of Ethical Performance.

© Aaphotographer | Dreamstime.com
 

British department store chain John Lewis is trialling a new energy efficiency label that tells consumers the lifetime electricity running costs on washing machines, washer dryers and tumble dryers.

According to the 'never knowingly undersold' store, consumers could save over £500 on a washer dryer’s lifetime energy costs, just by choosing a more energy efficient model.

The initiative has received official government backing. At the label’s launch, Energy Secretary Edward Davey said: “In the past, people have had no idea how much their appliances will add to their energy bills.

“Now consumers will be able to see clear, simple information on the lifetime electricity costs for appliances like washing machines and tumble dryers. This will help people to make better, more informed decisions and see how much an appliance is expected to cost over its lifetime.”

Stephen Cawley, head of sustainability at John Lewis, added: “We are looking forward to reviewing the results of the trial next year and seeing how customers respond to new more transparent labelling around the energy efficiency of these products.”

Picture courtesy: © Byjeng | Dreamstime.com