Co-conveners of the Global Tailings Review (GTR) – the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) – have endorsed the first Global Industry Standard on Tailings Dams.
GTR said the global standard, which is due to be launched next month, will establish “much needed robust requirements for the safer management of both existing and new tailings facilities globally”.
In a joint statement, Adam Matthews, director of ethics and engagement for the Church of England Pensions Board (CEPB), and John Howchin, from the Council of Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds, said:
“For decades people have called for a global standard that can drive best practice. It is tragic that it has taken the Brumadinho disaster to make this happen.”
Early last year the two organisations called for a new industry standard that would drive best practice to address the risk of tailings facility failure.
“We have been assured by the Global Tailings Review’s independent expert panel that if this standard had been in place, the disaster at Brumadinho would not have happened,” they stated.
In April 2019 the CEPB and Sweden’s AP funds wrote to nearly 700 listed mining companies with an “urgent request” for information about their management of tailings dam facilities.
The duo said:
“We expect all mining companies to comply with this framework, and responsible investors looking to address the risks of tailings failure now have a responsibility to drive implementation, incorporating the standard into stewardship and active ownership strategies.”
According to GTR, the next steps are to finalise reports that will provide additional detail, context, background and recommendations on the standard.
The standard will be published once it has been translated and all accompanying documents are ready. GTR expects to publish these in the coming weeks.
Originally published by IPE.
Effectively monitor your tailings storage facility with Decipher
Decipher is designed to provide you with key data and insights, enabling you to effectively monitor your TSF and your environmental obligations and compliance. Our solution can be securely accessed by industry, regulators, designers and operators involved in the management of TSFs. Decipher offers a comprehensive and functionally rich solution which combines regulatory (Compliance Management Software), mining waste management, stakeholder engagement, environmental monitoring, and environmental management system (EMS) tools to assist with tailings management:
View real-time data and receive exceedance alerts
Monitor land movement with remote sensing and InSAR datasets
Visualise real-time LiDAR data with insights into dam movement
Securely store and access all of your tailings data in the one place
Upload and reference key documentation
Visualise facilities across multiple sites in a single screen on a geospatial map
Monitor your facilities with InSAR, LiDAR, DEM and more
Capture a wide range of monitoring data and indicators such as surface and groundwater, decant pond water levels and quality, and embankment conditions
Capture and track obligations and conditions around your licence to operate to manage your key risks and actions
Action and task delegation for data collection with reminders
Maintain and track environmental monitoring compliance limits and exceedances
Manage and engage with all of your stakeholders with one central repository
Convert your engagements into actionable outcomes
Forecast, plan and track your sites activities using IBM’s Weather data
Create corporate report templates and meet requests for data provision from industry groups such as ICMM, Global Tailings Portal, PRI and UNEP
Integration capability with third party systems or public portals such as the Global Tailings Portal
Want to find out more about tailings storage monitoring?
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.