Investors representing $11 trillion in assets are supporting an initiative to promote a socially and environmentally responsible global mining sector by 2030.
Institutional investors, including the $304.9 billion California State Teachers' Retirement System, West Sacramento, and $589 billion APG Asset Management, are backing the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030.
The investor-led initiative will define a vision for the mining sector, recognizing that the industry has an important role to play in society and the low-carbon transition, a news release said.
Members of the commission will meet on a monthly basis, and 24 commissioners — including Adam Matthews, chair of the commission and chief responsible investment officer of the £3.2 billion Church of England Pensions Board, London — will be tasked with considering how investors value, invest and steward the sector to meet future demand in a socially and environmentally responsible way.
"The Mining 2030 Commission presents a unique opportunity to step back and consider how investors value, steward and invest for the long term in a sector whose time horizons are multidecadal and often at odds with short-term investment pressure," Matthews said in the release. "Twinned with this will be a consideration of the role of investors in supporting the alignment and consolidation of best practice standards on the key issues that challenge the sector as well as the role of addressing existing and future conflict that can be caused or exacerbated by extraction."
The commission builds on the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, which was created in part following the catastrophic failure of Brazil's Brumadinho dam in 2019.
The Mining 2030 Commission has also invited stakeholders from across the mining sector to contribute evidence to a research project, which aims to help in the understanding of future supply and demand, plus key challenges.
Further information is available on the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030 website.
