New Guide Aims to Help Mining Industry Reverse Its Impacts on Biodiversity

The International Council on Mining and Metals
(ICMM) — a CEO-led leadership organization focused on improving sustainable
development in the mining and metals industries — has published new guidance
that aims to help mining and metals companies achieve and maintain no net loss
of biodiversity at their operations, and ultimately strive for net gain of
biodiversity, as they work towards a nature-positive
future.

According to WWF’s 2024 Living Planet
Report, wildlife populations have seen
a 73 percent average decline from 1970 through 2020 — largely driven by
climate change,
deforestation,
habitat loss, hunting, overfishing and other environmental impacts
of food production and other resource-intensive industries. While the global
economy is dependent on the essential
services
provided by healthy ecosystems — including reliable access to clean water,
erosion prevention, flood control, carbon sequestration and more — mining
operations often intersect with areas of high biodiversity value and have also
historically played a significant role in environmental degradation. Therefore,
protecting and conserving nature is not just a responsibility — it is a business
imperative.

Achieving No Net Loss or Net Gain of Biodiversity: Good Practice
Guide outlines a
seven-step process — applicable at each stage of the mining lifecycle from a
project’s design to post-closure and production — to help companies establish
baseline assessments, apply the mitigation hierarchy and transparently disclose
progress towards their no-net-loss, or net-gain, goal. It is a technical
resource designed for practitioners at site level and corporate professionals
overseeing sustainability and biodiversity strategies to help scale and
accelerate the implementation of these approaches across the industry.

Recent research has driven home the interconnectedness of our most pressing
global
threats —
climate change, water and food insecurity, health risks and
biodiversity loss — and the need to address them concurrently to make the
headway necessary to ensure a livable future. Nature and biodiversity
loss
pose a significant risk to the wellbeing and livelihoods of people, ecosystems
and our global economy — but slow widespread adoption of natural capital
accounting
has prevented most industries from understanding the significance of their
natural collateral
damage.
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15 summit in 2022
spotlighted the issue; and the resulting Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity
Framework and a slew of new
tools,
frameworks
and market-based
mechanisms
have spurred many companies and governments into action to figure out how to do
their part to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, aiming for a
nature-positive world by 2050. But concerted efforts remain siloed and
piecemeal, further delaying meaningful progress.

Disrupting and destroying biodiversity is inherent in the mining
industry,
in particular. In 2023, a ‘regenerative remining’
initiative
backed by Apple, Mejuri and Rio Tinto launched to reverse the
environmental harm caused by past mining and support biodiversity and habitat
rehabilitation at mine sites; but the broader industry has yet to get involved.

For its part, ICMM — whose members include over 20 of the world’s largest mining
companies, representing a third of the global mining and metals industry —
recognizes that protecting and restoring biodiversity at mining and metals
operations is essential for the industry’s longevity, as well as its ability to
contribute to the global goal of halting and reversing nature loss outlined in
the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; “but we must go further,”
asserts Hayley Zipp, ICMM’s
Environment Director. “Building a nature-positive future requires
multi-stakeholder collaboration, innovation and accountability. That’s why our
members have committed to taking nature action across the value chains,
landscapes and systems we operate in. We urge companies across the industry —
and those managing significant land areas in other sectors — to take the lead in
making commitments that help protect and restore nature for the benefit of all.”

Now, ICMM’s guidance builds on decades of experience and lessons learned by the
organization’s members in rehabilitation, restoration and no-net-loss
strategies. By integrating real-world examples and global insights, the guidance
can help mining and metals companies — regardless of their size, maturity level
or location — ensure their operations pose no threat to biodiversity.

The new guide aims to help ICMM members achieve their direct operation
commitments set out in ICMM’s Position Statement:
Nature.
Guided by COP15’s Global Biodiversity Framework and shaped by leaders from
across industry, civil society, Indigenous Peoples groups and finance, the
Position Statement signifies a collective promise to contribute to a
nature-positive future across four areas of influence: direct operations,
value chains, landscapes and systems transformation. Commitment 1.3
of the Position Statement requires achieving no net loss or net gain of
biodiversity by closure for all existing mining operations from a 2020 baseline
or earlier, and for all new operations and significant expansions against a
pre-operation or pre-expansion baseline, respectively.

“Achieving no net loss or net gain is not the endpoint; it is a milestone on the
path to a regenerative relationship with nature,” says ICMM President and CEO
Rohitesh Dhawan. “I
encourage all ICMM members and the wider mining and metals industry to embrace
this guidance as a tool to deepen their commitments to nature. Together, let us
demonstrate that responsible mining is not just possible but essential for
achieving a resilient and equitable future for all.”

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Sustainable Brands Staff

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Published Mar 25, 2025 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET