Responsible Sourcing, New Materials Available to Tackle Capacity Building in Mining
Despite the increasing number of guidelines and regulations, it can still be difficult for companies to ensure responsible sourcing on the ground. The solution? Investments in capacity building activities. CSR Europe and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), has now made available a new training template to address the responsible sourcing in large-scale mines, smelters and refiners and their suppliers. The template was built on the Supplier Training Model developed by the collaborative platform Drive Sustainability. Discover all the other Platforms facilitated by CSR Europe.
Guidelines and regulations on responsible sourcing of raw materials are increasing. The EU regulation on Conflict Minerals, aimed at putting an end to the exploitation and abuse of local communities, including mineworkers, will come into force on 01 January 2021. In 2016, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its “Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas”. At a national level, relevant legislation on supply chain due diligence was passed in the Netherlands, with its “Child Labor Due Diligence” law, and in France with the regulation “Due diligence of corporations and main contractors”.
However, are these regulations really tackling the situation on the ground? According to the latest Corporate Human Rights Benchmarks (CHRB) Report of 2019, the majority of companies still perform poorly in the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights and Due Diligence.
Our experience in the leading automotive initiative Drive Sustainability (DS) confirms that regulations, risk assessment and audits do not yield practical solutions to daily challenges and should be complemented by capacity-building activities. To tackle this gap, the DS consortium has developed, in collaboration with suppliers and stakeholders, a “Supplier Training Model”. Its key feature is the interactive learning of fundamental and locally relevant knowledge on sustainability delivered in practical workshops and complemented by best practices.
Based on this model, CSR Europe, in partnership with the ’Extractives for Development’ sector program of GIZ, addressed similar knowledge gaps in the mining industry. The result? A training template that large-scale mines, smelters and refiners can use for their internal and supplier training. The material was developed and tested in close collaboration with the International Platinum Association and large-scale Platinum mines in South Africa. Companies interested in ensuring responsible sourcing along their supply chain can use the template, available upon request, as a framework for their own supplier training.
For more information:
Drive Sustainability Project Manager