DIGGING DEEPER INTO NATURE METRICS FOR THE MINING SECTOR
DIGGING DEEPER INTO NATURE METRICS FOR THE MINING SECTOR
By Chup Priovashini and Laura Fox (Chronos Sustainability) and Annelisa Grigg (GlobalBalance)
Mining is one of the most important sectors in the global economy. It produces the billions of tonnes of metals and minerals each year that underpin most of our global products from tech to transport, chemicals to construction. It is also a sector with significant impacts on nature and biodiversity.
Given the latest discussion at the biodiversity COP in Colombia about indicators to monitor the progress against the Global Biodiversity Framework, it is more important than ever that the sector evolves consistent, robust metrics to assess and disclose its dependencies and impacts on nature, and associated risks and opportunities.
Chronos, GlobalBalance and ICMM collaborated on the TNFD mining and metals metrics
As part of this challenge Chronos Sustainability and GlobalBalance worked with ICMM and the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) – the market-led, science-based initiative to shift global financial flows towards nature-positive outcomes – to create the metals and mining sector-specific disclosure indicators and associated metrics.
Our work drew upon the rapidly evolving landscape of disclosure requirements, including but not limited to:
· the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) E4 on Biodiversity and Ecosystems connected with CSRD,
· the new biodiversity topic standard by the Global Reporting Standard (GRI),
· other TNFD sector guides,
· the results of the Aligning Accounting Approaches for Nature (Align) Project, and
· mining-specific reporting requirements such as those outlined in ICMM’s Water Reporting Good Practice Guide.
After examining the requirements of these standards in detail, metrics were then refined through a process which involved incorporating feedback from a public consultation, and several rounds of workshops and interviews with ICMM members including multiple early-movers in the mining sector. A final set of metrics was produced that cover drivers of nature change including total spatial footprint, pollution, water withdrawal and climate change. This final set of metrics was published by TNFD in June 2024 and is available here. This will ultimately be complemented by further guidance on ‘State of Nature’ metrics by the TNFD.
Our Reflections
Here are our team’s insights about nature metrics development and design from participating in this project:
1. Careful consultation with companies is critical for designing appropriate and usable metrics. Early movers have already developed metrics, piloted data collection processes and incorporated metrics into their targets. Sharing their lessons learned provided valuable input.
2. Companies’ support for metrics is constrained by data gaps, resource availability, and cultural and jurisdictional differences. Companies are already investing significantly in reporting systems to meet emerging disclosure requirements. Against this background, some are hesitant to promote new metrics that add to the heavy reporting burden, especially if the topic is not viewed as material to the operations, whereas others are supportive. Willingness to invest in new disclosures for a particular topic depends on other regulatory burdens (i.e. alternative disclosures) as well as materiality. Metric design should be mindful to bring along the whole sector, not just leaders.
3. Additional (voluntary) metrics have an important role in pushing the envelope. These metrics give companies a chance to shine a light on topics they are excelling at, or newly emerging topics. Examples from the mining industry include circular economy actions, transformative change and ecosystem service assessments. Company disclosure will demonstrate how to move towards a nature-positive future, and enable a more sophisticated dialogue with stakeholders to inform how the metrics develop in the future.
4. Messaging around site vs corporate level application of TNFD metrics needs clarifying: Despite the TNFD LEAP process being explicitly designed to enable companies to filter down to sites with the most significant impact for the company on nature and people, there is a lack of clarity on how some metrics should be disclosed – whether at site level, for these material sites, or at a corporate level aggregated for material sites. This confusion created barriers to identification of appropriate metrics with concerns around the reporting burden if all metrics were required to be disclosed for all sites. There was also questions about whether the metrics are meaningful if aggregated to corporate level.
5. ‘State of Nature’ metrics are missing, progress is imminent, and the mining sector can offer expertise: The state of nature is considered to be the condition and extent of ecosystems, and species population size and extinction risk, including positive and negative changes. There was much discussion amongst the stakeholders consulted for the project around State of Nature metrics with a significant demand expressed for more granular, clearly defined metrics. This group of metrics are fundamental to our understanding of nature and whether actions to address nature loss are working. TNFD plans to develop additional guidance on State of Nature metrics that will be relevant to all sectors. This guidance will see a significant step forward, we hope, in an area where companies are seeking support. Companies within the mining sector have tested different metrics and tools within the context of delivering net positive impacts on biodiversity and as part of broader commitments to nature. It will be important to bring this learning into TNFD’s future guidance.
6. Ensuring stakeholders have an equal chance to participate is key to metric development and credibility. Time and resources are needed to ensure the experience and opinions of all stakeholders including conservation NGOs and Indigenous Peoples and local communities, are incorporated into a consultation process for metric development. Inclusive and transparent processes to ensure equal participation is central to ensuring robust metrics are supported by all stakeholders.
· Read the guidance: https://tnfd.global/publication/additional-sector-guidance-metals-and-mining/#publication-content
· With thanks to Annelisa Grigg of Globalbalance, a bespoke consulting service to companies, investors and civil society on biodiversity risks and opportunities.
· Chronos Sustainability is the Secretariat for the Mining 2030 initiative. Read more on Chronos Sustainability’s biodiversity expertise in our ‘what we do’ section.
Mining and forest landscape photograph – Credit: Pok Rie / Pexels