Climate Smart Mining Emissions Widget

Bringing alignment and consistency across mining-related standards

Companies like Apple, Tiffany & Co., BMW, and Tesla are calling for responsible minerals to use in their products. To meet this demand, voluntary responsible mining initiatives, standards, and investor screens have proliferated over the last decade. However, on the critical issues of reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and setting targets for emissions reduction, there is wide variability in what’s being requested and how companies are reporting. Initiatives are calling for different climate reporting metrics, with varying levels of rigor, particularly regarding target setting.

As demand for minerals intensifies, especially demand for minerals for the low-carbon economy, RESOLVE is developing a new, precompetitive tool to support mining companies and downstream companies and investors: the Climate Smart Mining Emissions Widget. The widget is being designed to bring alignment and consistency across mining-related standards and initiatives on climate reporting and, in doing so, move the needle forward for mining companies and companies using minerals in their products to help achieve greenhouse gas reduction goals.

We are working with mining companies and associations, responsible mining initiatives, and others to develop the widget. The widget will include a core climate reporting and target setting benchmark that will then be adapted so that it can be easily inserted into current responsible mining and investing standards and screens. The development of the Climate Smart Mining Emissions Widget is a model for how to promote interoperability and bring alignment on other sustainability issues like free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and biodiversity, across the many standards and initiatives. Widgets for these issues are now on the drawing board.

GIZ is the primary donor for the Climate Smart Mining Emissions Widget, and RESOLVE is consulting several organizations as we design the widget, including research institutions focused on climate reporting and actors across the mining, metals, and mineral supply chain.