Development and the Environment: Some Basic Issues

Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development, 2012

The main objective of this paper is to examine sustainable development in the corporate mining context, and provide some guidelines for mining companies seeking to operate more sustainably. There is now a burgeoning literature that examines sustainable development in the context of minerals and mining, most of which is concerned with sustainability at global and national scales. What these numerous perspectives on sustainable mineral extraction, minerals and metals recycling, environmental management, and social performance, is how sustainable development applies to mining companies the and what steps a mine must take in order to improve the sustainability of operations. Since mining processes have the potential to impact a diverse group of environmental entities, and are of interest to a wide range of stakeholder groups, there is ample opportunity for the industry to operate more sustainably. Specifically, with improved planning, implementation of sound environmental management tools and cleaner technologies, extended social responsibility to stakeholder groups, the formation of training, a mine can improve performance in both the environmental and socioeconomic arenas, and thus contribute enormously to sustainable development at the mine level.

South African Journal of Economics and …, 1998

Motivation for and objectives of the study 2 The natural resource and environmental accounting: principles and state in South Africa 2.1 The concept of sustainable income and resource rents 2.2 Development of the resource accounts for minerals 2.3 Measurement of resource rents for minerals resources 2.4 The state of natural resource accounting in South Africa 3 Mining and the South African economy 4 The natural resource accounts for minerals in South Africa 4.1 Gold resource accounts 4.2 Coal resource accounts 4.3 Other minerals and total mining 4.4 The share of mineral assets in national wealth 4.5 Calculation of the user cost of capital for gold and coal 5 Implications for sustainable resource management and macroeconomic development and policy 6 Conclusion

2014

I declare that this dissertation is my own unaided work. All citations, references and borrowed ideas have been duly acknowledged. I confirm that an external editor was not used. It is being submitted for the degree of Masters of Social Science in the Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences, University KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. None of the present work has been submitted previously for any degree or examination in any other University. NM\)\'i~ ~~~W Student name and surname

2017

South Africa is a mineral rich country with a long established mining sector. With the worldwide advent of the discourse around and conscious need to practice sustainable development, mining has needed to be framed and tackled from a sustainable development perspective. By its very nature mining of a finite ore body is a temporary land use. Upon reaching the end of viable economic production, a mine will need to be ‘closed’. Historically, closure has been environmentally inept leaving lasting negative consequences. With modern sustainable development principles driving mining practice and integrated into South African legislation, these negative impacts should be ameliorated upon closure; whereby mine closure should contribute positively, leaving an environmentally sustainable land use legacy for future development. Nevertheless in practice, closure is still often poorly planned for and executed; with near on unmitigateable environmental impacts remaining. Thus the research problem stemmed from an interest in seeking to determine if progress toward or away from this ideal of sustainable mine closure could be measured. To tackle this question it was deemed pertinent to interrogate the underlying sustainability principles in international and South African mining and closure policy. With these principles established, South African mine closure legislation was reviewed and found to be reasonably robust in terms of the inclusion of sustainability principles. The following step of the research was to survey a quorum of experts as to environmental sustainability indicators, and current and best mine closure practices in South Africa. Participants were gathered utilising the ‘snowball’ method of referral. A predominantly open-ended questionnaire was designed, and administered using the online platform Google Forms. Responses were collated and interpreted by means of a qualitative narrative, with quantitative analysis where possible. Findings include that: South African closure professionals tend to be employed in the private sector; South Africa’s top five economic minerals dominated 80% of closure experts’ experience; and practitioners address a comprehensive range of mine closure aspects throughout the mine-life cycle. In particular numerous failings in mine closure practice in South Africa were expounded, inter alia: weak senior management commitment, poor baseline studies, an unstable legislative milieu, the quality of environmental monitoring data, the existence and practicability of mine closure plans and misalignment between government, mining houses and communities. Nevertheless, numerous successes were also enumerated including a focus on ‘mining for closure’ by implementing proactive planning, particularly regarding end use objectives for water and land. Thus, linking sustainability principles, objectives of closure, and with a view to addressing the gaps in South African closure practice, this study proposes an environmental sustainability indicator framework in an effort to afford the mining industry a tool to measure (and manage) the trajectory of a mine’s operations toward sustainable closure. Furthermore, a conceptual framework which iteratively guides sustainable mine closure is put forward; and the stabilisation of the mining legislation milieu in South Africa is also strongly advocated as an imperative in encouraging and achieving such lasting closure.

Managing global transitions, 2013

This paper examines the impact of environmental management practices on the financial performance of a South African mining firm. The major aim of this paper is to investigate whether such practices have a close relationship with the mining firm’s financial performance (represented by return on equity [ROE]). The approach is a case study of a South African mining firm listed under the socially responsible index (SRI) of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It uses Green-Steel sa (pseudonym used in place of the real name) as a case study. Using multiple regression statistics, the return on equity of Green-Steel sa is regressed on three environmental management practices of Green- Steel (carbon reduction, energy efficiency, and water usage). The result shows there is no significant relationship between the variables and this lends credence to information gathered from Green-Steel environmental reports that Green-Steel’s environmental management practices are driven mostly by a desir...

2006

Revenue from mineral resources has contributed to the improvement of the quality of life in several countries globally. The importance of mining in the SADC region is demonstrated by the amount of minerals produced; 40% of vanadium, 72% of the platinum group of metals, 40% of chromite, and 55% of diamonds of the global output. Mining contributes about 60% of the foreign currency receipts of the SADC region (www.sadc.int). Some of the major settlements providing much needed services have developed due to mining, e.g. Johannesburg, Francistown, Copperbelt towns of Zambia. Mining contributes significantly to government revenue in Southern Africa, e.g. 45% in -Botswana in 2004. The importance of the mining sector has been recognized at the SADC level through various initiatives aimed at the development of this sector, e.g. SADC Protocol on Mining, and attempts at harmonizing policies relevant to the development of the sector (UNECA, 2004). However, in the international arena, continued ...

Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law, 2015

Resources Policy, 2000

This paper examines sustainable development in the corporate mining context, and provides some guidelines for mining companies seeking to operate more sustainably. There is now a burgeoning literature that examines sustainable development in the context of minerals and mining, most of which is concerned with sustainability at global and national scales. What is often challenging to ascertain, however, from these numerous perspectives on sustainable mineral extraction, minerals and metals recycling, environmental management, and social performance, is how sustainable development applies to mining companies themselves, and what steps a mine must take in order to improve the sustainability of operations. Since mining processes have the potential to impact a diverse group of environmental entities, and are of interest to a wide range of stakeholder groups, there is ample opportunity for the industry to operate more sustainably. Specifically, with improved planning, implementation of sound environmental management tools and cleaner technologies, extended social responsibility to stakeholder groups, the formation of sustainability partnerships, and improved training, a mine can improve performance in both the environmental and socioeconomic arenas, and thus contribute enormously to sustainable development at the mine level.

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 2016

The wide acceptance of economic approaches to environmental management and policy, masks increasing heterogeneity in the field. This editorial addresses the question whether the economic approach is still warranted and under which conditions. A broad outline of the trends in both orthodox and heterodox economic approaches is also presented. The traditional split between environmental and ecological economics is not doing justice to recent developments in the field. Instead it is proposed to rather refer to Environmental, Resource and Ecological Economics (EREE), Ecological-Economic Systems (EES) and Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) approaches as well as Heterodox approaches to Environment and Sustainability (HEES). The contributions made to this special issue are placed within their respective subfields of influence. It is concluded that a deeper, self-critical exposition of moral philosophies and values as well as models of reality are needed. A strategy of engagement in an attitude ...

2006

International research indicates that the practice of environmental management may lead to profitability and competitive advantage for the firm. But this theory has not been tested in South Africa. This lack of empirical evidence led the researcher to the primary research question: does environmental management increase a firm's profitability in South African-based firms?

Resources Policy, 2013

The concept of sustainable development is debatable within the mining context as the fact that mineral resources are non-renewable makes mining inherently unsustainable. The need for a realistic definition of sustainability that can be applied to mining is important, in light of claims by the industry that sustainable development principles underpin aspects of their operations. Furthermore, the socioeconomic upliftment that should logically follow the implementation of these principles is not visible in many mining areas. Within the theoretical frameworks of intermediate sustainability, our study aimed to determine the level of sustainability that is appropriate for the mining context. The evaluation of community perspectives within the Rustenburg platinum region in South Africa as a case study, based on qualitative information derived from structured questionnaires and informal interviews brings further clarity. We found out that the environmental and social costs associated with mining were high, while economic benefits to surrounding communities were low. The perceptions of community and corporations were found to contrast sharply: the reality experienced by community members fell well short of the optimistic scenarios presented in the corporate social responsibility reports of the mining companies, which has implications for the mining industry in the area. The Rustenburg region is typical of mining areas, more especially the developing world, and application of a realistic sustainable development concept here can help the mining industry elsewhere to move its operations onto a genuinely more sustainable path.

Rudarsko-geološko-naftni zbornik

A comprehensive systemic approach is needed to make effective decisions for global sustainability. The system’s points of view introduced sustainable development (S.D.) and sustainability in prior years. Sustainable development is expressed as a desire followed by humanity to live in a better condition considering all the limits that nature could have. Social, environmental, and economic responsibilities are the wide-ranging developmental characteristics that form sustainability. In this paper, with the help of search engines like Scopus and Web of Science, several documents related to environmental sustainability in the mining industry were studied. The principal investigated problems were tailings dam failure, forestland use in mining operations, social and environmental issues in crushed stone mining industries, landfill mining challenges, climatic problems, economic problems, and fatalities in artisanal and small-scale mines. Also, a table was designed to categorise these proble...

Sustainable development has been described as a means of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The mining sector needs to adopt this philosophy as it deals with depletable resources. The role of the community, government and resource companies in promoting sustainable development is described.