Mining for dignity

Should increasing dignity be the goal of public policy? We all want and strive for dignity, but how often are public policies discussed based on a framework that considers impacts on dignity as paramount?

What about the private sector? Businesses have a conceptual purpose which combines profit with value for stakeholders. Recognizing that businesses impact a broad variety of stakeholders – employees, customers, suppliers, value chain participants, and various constituents of the communities where businesses are found – a common denominator that is important to all of these groups is a striving for dignity. It is also important to remember that businesses that disappoint, or worse, ignore, their stakeholders are businesses that are undercutting their long-term foundations.

The word dignity derives from the Latin word ‘dignus,’ which means worthy. I would suggest that dignity today equates to a combination of human rights, opportunities, agency, and respect.

How would a focus on dignity impact various public policy areas?

• Climate change - isn’t a common denominator, the fact that nobody wants to be impacted by extreme weather events that are amped up by global warming? Dialogue on the energy transition often centers around the existential issues that are associated with climate change, maybe rightfully, but at the most fundamental level, people will be adversely and severely impacted by a changing climate, a narrative and policy framework that aligns impacts on people, on dignity

• Taxes - aren’t tax structures that reduce inequalities more aligned with dignity?

• What about health care - isn’t access to care for all a basic underpinning of dignity?

What about business? A private sector perspective – mining 

Now let’s look at the private sector. 

Recognizing that mining is my focus, this article will use it as an example: As a reminder, large mines are often found in relatively remote, underdeveloped places, where projects have outsized impacts on neighboring communities and regional economies.

Professor Daniel Franks, director of the Global Centre for Mineral Security at The University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute, said that "Mineral security from a human-centred perspective is when all people have sufficient and affordable access to the minerals and mineral products fundamental to live a dignified life - for shelter, sustenance, mobility, communication and energy."

Applying Professor Franks' words to mining regions:
• Community-centric solutions to projects that integrate approaches with the realities, beliefs, and values of locals – put simply, a mining project is a guest of a host community, and enabling agency through respectful engagement is essential

• Environmental oversight is a necessity, not just because of lovely, delicate ecology that can be adversely impacted when responsible practices are not in play, but because people are directly impacted when land, water, and air are contaminated

• Mining can be a strong trigger for sustainable development or a curse that deepens local misery while extracting resources for remote benefits. There are a number of ways that mining operations can collaborate with regional stakeholders toward growth – local content, employment, and beneficiation. The intent of partnering toward growth is to create value for all local stakeholders, increasing the pie in ways that mines, communities, and various other sectors can all gain

• LSM collaboration with and support of ASM professionalization is table stakes for conflict-free projects that deliver value to large as well as artisanal miners. Small-scale miners were often operating before large mines came to their area, and may have been leading indicators for why large-scale exploration started. Professionalization improves lives - dignity - while de-risking both large and small operations

• Public policy and legal frameworks defined by regional and national governments can codify relationships that increase dignity based on mining. Local content expectations, free prior informed consent (FPIC) requirements, and LSM-ASM collaboration encouragement all set the ground for business relationships that increase dignity and value through respectful collaboration

• Last but not least, standard setters in the industry can ensure that responsible mining expectations cover the full range of business scenarios. An important gap that we see today centers around LSM-ASM relationships, where expectations are not codified. Bridging this gap de-risks conflict and, more fundamentally, sets the ground for increased dignity. 

In summary

We all want and strive for dignity, yet neither public policies nor the private sector position dignity centrally in decision making. Aligning what we do through governments and businesses with basic human goals isn’t just common sense; it is central to delivering approaches that are truly sustainable.

Mining, a foundational sector for economies that operates across all regions of the world, is a clear example of how aligning strategies with the concept of increasing dignity makes business as well as social sense. As a reminder, the sector includes 7 million people who work for large scale mining enterprises, along with 45 million artisanal miners, with work often found in remote, relatively underdeveloped places where impacts can be significant.

A dignity-based lens in mining is not a charity-based lens. 

Dignity is simply a common denominator for engaging stakeholders, given that everybody strives for dignity. It is smart business to earn social license through community-centric approaches and to de-risk conflict through collaboration with ASM. Financial value, along with social, environmental, and economic impact, is delivered. Although details differ, similar dynamics play out in other sectors of our economies as well as in the realm of public policies when thinking about the interplay between dignity and sustainable value.

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