The Mineral Resources Landscape – An Expanded Conceptualisation of Minerals Sustainability

As part of global systems of mineral production and consumption, the Australian minerals sector is facing sustainability challenges across technological, social, ecological, economic and governance domains, as well as between local, national and global scales. To ensure that the Australian minerals sector progresses towards sustainability, it is imperative to understand the possible ways in which Australia’s mineral resources could support sustainable futures. A significant research gap exists between the complex nature of questions concerning minerals sustainability and the reductionist methods available to deal with them. This paper argues the need for broader, more integrated approaches to questions concerning minerals sustainability, which can address multiple human perspectives, complex and ‘messy’ patterns and processes across multiple organisational, temporal and geographical scales and whole systems of mineral production and consumption. To inform the development of a new approach to minerals sustainability, this work reviews the contemporary understanding of the Australian minerals sustainability problematic, from the perspective of the Australian minerals sector (Minerals Council of Australia), the Australian research sector (Mudd 2007a, 2007b; Mudd and Ward 2008) and a multi-scale international project (MMSD 2002). This review shows the focus of current responses to the minerals sustainability problematic, identifies the need for an integrated approach to questions of minerals sustainability and addresses how different approaches are informed by underlying and unarticulated assumptions about the tolerability of tradeoffs between different societal goals, the treatment of uncertainty and the application of different conceptual geographical, organisational, temporal and life cycle scales to define the minerals sustainability problematic. The Mineral Resources Landscape proposed, offers an expanded conceptualisation of minerals sustainability, to link minerals production and consumption in an integrated assessment across the entire minerals supply chain, connecting social, ecological, technological, economic and governance domains across local, national and global scales. The key leverage points governing change in the Mineral Resources Landscape are identified as: • the material source, • extraction and production technologies, • level of service and value, and • consumption patterns. Mapping the key challenges facing the minerals sector, as identified in the review herein, indicates that the boundaries defining traditional conceptualisations of minerals sustainability focus on the material source and technology and ignore two very key drivers of the Mineral Resources Landscape – the ‘services’ minerals offer to society and the ‘consumption trends’ which assimilate these services into society. Understanding these overlooked aspects of the Mineral Resources Landscape, along with the conventional areas of focus, is essential for identifying the Australian minerals sector as a provider of sustainable mineral services. This insight prompts a reconsideration of the role of minerals services and consumption trends, together with the role of the material source and technology in shaping change and the emergence of sustainable systems of Australian minerals production and consumption, across multiple scales and domains. 1. PhD Candidate, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007. Email: carlia.cooper@student.uts.edu.au 2. Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007. Email: damien.giurco@uts.edu.au INTRODUCTION Sustainability lives in a world distinct from the present: one with a new vocabulary and cultural habits. As we reach toward that new world, we remain enmeshed in our modern milieu with the vocabulary and stories that have served us so well for centuries. Until the new story replaces the old, we will have to ... hold on to two opposing models of reality and beliefs about ourselves while we use our intelligence to design the new tools and institutions that sustainability requires (Ehrenfeld, 2008, p 215). In light of the global imperative to progress sustainability, the possible ways in which Australia’s minerals resources may support sustainable futures and contribute to the transformation of global patterns of production and consumption, need to be understood. However a significant gap exists between the nature of questions concerning minerals sustainability, and the methods available to deal with them. This indicates the need for broad integrated approaches to questions concerning minerals sustainability, which can address multiple human perspectives, complex and ‘messy’ patterns and processes across multiple organisational, temporal and geographical scales and whole systems of mineral production and consumption. The contested, complex and messy nature of the mining and minerals sustainability problematic are described below, establishing the need for new, broader, integrated and adaptive approaches to understanding the possible ways in which Australia’s minerals resources could serve sustainable futures. Mining and minerals sustainability – the Australian context As part of the global mineral supply chain, the Australian minerals sector faces challenges across local, regional and global scales relating to land management, economic development, local communities, the environment, information sharing, artisanal mining, governance, the viability of the minerals sector and the need for an integral approach to using minerals across systems of production and consumption (MMSD, 2002). Nationally, the Australian minerals sector is also facing a unique and complex sustainability problematic. As the rapid urbanisation of the global population drives further demand for Australian minerals resources, long term data indicates that ore grades for most base and precious metals are in gradual, but permanent decline, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, water consumption and waste rock and tailings volumes (Mudd, 2007b). These trends become critical in light of global efforts to combat climate change and improve water and energy efficiency, especially with regard to the constraints they could possibly impose to future production (Mudd and Ward, 2008). A prominent response to these challenges has been to develop new technologies to access new resources, demonstrated by recent interest in the prospects of deep sea mining in Australia. Activity in Australia’s seafloor exploration and mining sector is marked by the recent release of the Australian Offshore Minerals Location Map (CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, 2006), Australia’s extended marine jurisdiction and CSIRO’s recent C COOPER and D GIURCO report exploring the social viability of an expanded seafloor exploration and mining industry in Australia (Littleboy and Boughen, 2007). Numerous authors claim that technological fixes will not work alone in addressing the complexity of today’s sustainability problematic (Riedy, 2007; Slaughter, 2004; Wilber, 2000a). The integration of objective and subjective disciplinary perspectives is needed, to capture and the human dimensions and ethical debates associated with the implementation of new technologies. ‘Modern technology renders ethical actions and responsibility problematic’ (Ehrenfeld, 2008, p 31), and in its pervasive form, is regarded as a key dimension of unsustainability (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Slaughter, 2004). The need for technology to be assessed in a broader context is widely affirmed (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Rip and Kemp, 1998; Slaughter, 2004), however rarely practiced with regard to minerals extraction and production technologies. In order to delineate the role of Australia’s mineral resources in servicing sustainable futures, the sustainable development of the Australian minerals sector needs to be assessed in an in integrated framework, by means of understanding the dynamics of the whole system pertaining to minerals production and use. Multiple perspectives – the social construction of the mining and minerals sustainability problematic The challenges facing the Australian minerals sector may be defined and prioritised in many ways, according to the multiple human perspectives, expectations, interests, value systems and ethical standpoints that exist. Consequently, questions surrounding mining and minerals sustainability are highly contested within society, as described by Bridge (2004) and Cowell et al (1999). This ‘contested nature’ emanates from the different ways in which people value the ‘services’ offered by minerals, as well as the ‘services’ offered by the ecosystems, landscapes and cultures which are transformed in the process of mineral extraction, processing and use. The ‘services’ offered by minerals are inherently subjective and socially constructed. One person may value gold for its role as jewellery, while another person may value gold for its role as a monetary metal or reserve backing. Additionally, another person may not be concerned with the ‘services’ offered by gold at all, but rather the significant environmental and social impacts associated with gold extraction and processing (Larmer 2009). Metals may have a vital role to play in a sustainable future, however, what a sustainable economy looks like and how materials are used therein raises starkly contrasting human value systems and perceptions of equality, morality, need, wellbeing and growth. Due to the difficulty of integrating these highly subjective human dimensions into a systemic approach to minerals sustainability, these considerations receive too little attention. Complex nature of questions concerning minerals sustainability Systems of mineral extraction, production, and use involve interactions across social, technological, ecological, governance and economic domains, as well as