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Mining Companies And Social And Environmental Responsibility

Mining companies and social and environmental responsibility

Mining has an image problem. In developing and developed countries alike, the public tends to regard the industry as dirty, dangerous and disruptive - and those who stand to profit from it as greedy despoilers.
But as gold, copper and other metals hit their highest prices for many years, and the power generation industry is poised for a big shift from gas to coal, the imperative to challenge that caricature is becoming more urgent.
While mine companies are making record profits, and mining stocks are attracting swaths of new investors, the risk of reputation damage is also rising as easy-to-reach deposits of metals, coal and diamonds in locations such as Australia and Canada are exhausted, forcing mining companies to expand into more remote areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The critical voices are loud and well organized. But the industry is fighting back - admitting to past failings but trumpeting the message that, at a time when many fund managers use corporate social responsibility as an important criterion for investment, it has cleaned up its act.
Fierce criticism of the environmental and social impact of mining is nothing new. The industry has long had a reputation for making large profits in poor countries and leaving nothing but environmental and social damages.

Most mining companies operate in many and different nations where they exert political influence to obtain subsidies, low taxes and shape regulations. These companies have become large MNCs and their most significant competitive advantage in recent years is considered to be international mobility to seek low-cost inputs and labor to production.
Typical of the protest movement is Earthworks, a US-based non-governmental organization that since 2004 has been running a campaign called No Dirty Gold. It accuses gold producers of using cyanide to recover greater amounts of metal and of wrecking traditional ways of life....