What are the key social challenges of a mine's lifecycle?

Last week, our socio-economic development manager Christian Spano took part in the “Licence to Legacy – creating social impacts throughout the project lifecycle” webinar organised by Ethical Corporation, alongside John Abraham, principal, Abraham et al, a social mining project consultancy.

In this article, we highlight the key sustainability challenges discussed in the webinar.

The big issues

When embarking on a new mining project, all stages need considered attention when you are thinking about maximising your socio-economic contribution (the difference you make to the community and its economy). 

But which are the most difficult stages to navigate in that process? 

During the webinar, 36% of attendees believed that the ‘post-closure’ period would prove most problematic, while 29% thought that ‘feasibility’ and ‘exploration’ respectively were. 14% chose ‘production’ and no one thought that ‘closure’ would be most difficult.

However, Christian was keen to point out that the construction period of a mine, if it had been included, would likely have been the option most would have selected. 
“Local stakeholders wait for construction to start as it represents the beginning of a significant change in their life. They can get support and access to procurement, work for the mine and improve their well-being. But they can also miss the opportunities and solely experience negative impacts (noise, dust, etc.). That uncertainty makes everybody nervous during the construction phase.”

Exploration, feasibility and construction

When asked what they thought would be the biggest challenges during the exploration, feasibility and construction stages of a mining project, 74% of webinar respondents chose ‘managing community expectations’ as most challenging; 13% chose ‘assessing future project requirements’; 9% selected ‘procurement’; 4% chose ‘developing a local content plan’ and no one thought ‘assessing skills and competencies at a local level’ was the biggest challenge.

Ensuring that you have the trust of the local community can only be achieved if you deliver on what has been promised. Commenting on the result, Christian highlighted how working closely with the local community is essential for success. 

“When you experience unrealistic expectations from the community, it could be a sign of unsuccessful engagement or an over-saturation of grant-funding. It’s important that the project is viewed as a partnership where you work closely with local organisations, businesses and government. If you don’t connect your socio-economic activities directly with local stakeholder priorities and business milestones, you are going to be in trouble.

“You need to involve local organisations, NGOs, banks, government and local partners from exploration to closure to ensure that a social infrastructure and a mind-set of self-dependency remain in place once the mining company wants to leave the area. It makes the process of closure smoother and less costly, demonstrating the business advantages of our SED strategy,” he added.

Production, expansion and contraction

33% of webinar attendees chose ‘managing budgets and adapting to your external environment’ as the biggest legacy challenge during production, expansion and contraction stages, with 28% choosing ‘adapting to a contracting or expanding project’. 11% believed that ‘executing your strategy’ was most difficult, while 22% chose ‘stakeholder engagement’ and 6% went with ‘planning for closure’.

However, for Christian, the production and expansion phase is where legacy is built. Through that period, local capacity is created and the role of the mine is diminished as a proportion of other players join the development process. “If you perform that phase well, then every other challenge will become more straightforward,” he said.