The Role of Responsible Mining in the Clean Energy Transition: ICMM CEO Rohitesh Dhawan in Conversation

Ro Dhawan: Minerals and metals are essential to our current lives and even more so to the energy transition, but they cannot come at the expense of nature. So people are rightly looking to our industry just saying, "You have an impact on nature directly. You affect the land, you affect the air, you affect water, both fresh and ocean. And so please show us how are you going to mine these minerals we're going to need while taking care of our precious planet."

Michael Torrance: Welcome to Sustainability Leaders. I'm Michael Torrance, Chief Sustainability Officer at BMO. On this show, we will talk with leading sustainability practitioners from the corporate, investor, academic and NGO communities to explore how this rapidly evolving field of sustainability is impacting global investment, business practices and our world.

Speaker 3: The views expressed here are those of the participants and not those of Bank of Montreal, its affiliates or subsidiaries.

Colin Hamilton: Welcome. I'm Colin Hamilton, Commodities Analyst at BMO Capital Markets based in London. At BMO, we are extremely proud of our connection with the global metals and mining industry, our 33rd Annual Global Metals, Mining & Critical Minerals Conference. In this episode of Sustainability Leaders, I'm delighted to sit down with Ro Dhawan, CEO of ICMM to discuss the contribution of minerals and metals to a sustainable world. Ro, you're no stranger to Sustainability Leaders. Indeed, I think this is your third appearance. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Ro Dhawan: You're clearly suckers for punishment. It's great to be here.

Colin Hamilton: Absolutely. So let's start, you're just not long back from Davos, the World Economic Forum.

Ro Dhawan: That's right.

Colin Hamilton: And there you made a big announcement around nature positive mining. I'm really fascinated by this. Could you tell us just the background and I suppose more importantly what the tangible commitments this will bring?

Ro Dhawan: Colin, of all the things that ICMM has done, there are a few that I'm more proud of than this. Because it directly responds to the call we're hearing from society where people are saying, "Minerals and metals are essential to our current lives and even more so to the energy transition, but they cannot come at the expense of nature." And that's because we are living through the sixth mass extinction of nature with almost a million species at risk of extinction. So people are rightly looking to our industry just saying, "You have an impact on nature directly. You affect the land, you affect the air, you affect water, both fresh and ocean. And so please show us how are you going to mine these minerals we're going to need while taking care of our precious planet." So the commitments we

made directly respond to that call and essentially show how our industry is going to contribute to a nature positive future.

And when we say nature positive, what we mean is that there is more nature, not less. And when we say nature, what we mean is both living and non-living nature. Living nature being plants and animals, non-living being the land, the air and the water. So we've made concrete commitments, and like all other ICMM commitments, they are a condition of membership, which our 24 members who account for a third of the global industry are going to be held accountable to and will be transparent about our progress. And these commitments span four areas. Our direct operations. Where our keystone commitment is that each of the mine sites in the ICMM member companies' portfolios will achieve at least no net loss of biodiversity at closure relative to a 2020 baseline. That is what people are looking first and foremost to us to say, "You and your direct operations, what are you going to do to make sure that plants and animals and nature more broadly has not suffered irreparably as a result of your operations?"

That's in our direct operations. We made commitments secondly in our value chains. That we will work with our partners, both suppliers and customers, to make sure that their impacts on nature are also being well managed. The third area of focus for us is our landscapes because we're often situated where there are other actors in the landscape too. And here we're giving companies options for how they can contribute to nature positive outcomes in the landscapes. For example, by partnering with others like the agricultural sector to improve the state of nature.

And finally, we are also making commitments in the economic system of which we are a part. Because we know that nature is at its dire state today because our global economy does not value or price nature in. And so we're making commitments, again, there's some optionality in them, for how companies can help change that economic system. Either by, for example, and this is an area that BMO is leading in, creating new financial instruments that incentivize nature positive outcomes. More details on these at nature.icmm.com, Colin. But really the message I want people to take away from this is we're all gravely concerned about the state of nature in the world that we live in and these commitments are the blueprint for how a sector like ours can contribute to a nature positive future.

Colin Hamilton: And I think this is interesting in the context of some of the comments you made to our conference last year. You talked about the mining industry having a bit of a trust deficit. Is this a key part of getting back with the communities, with the governments and saying, "Look, mining's here to help."

Ro Dhawan: Fascinatingly, Colin, when I talked about the trust deficit last year, it was on the basis of some work we've done using an independent third party polling company who has asked people around the world what they think of the mining

and metals industry. And as I said last year, trust in our sector is low and it isn't improving. So we are going to need to do things differently. When we dug further into it since the conference last year and we understood from people, what would be the one thing the industry could do that would change your perception of it and change your view of the industry, it was action on nature.

That is the thing that 30,000 people across 30 countries and deep dives with stakeholders that we conducted told us matters more to people than almost any other issue. There's lots of things that people are concerned about, but the one area they want to see leadership in is on nature. So I'm confident, Colin, that if we, and of course the companies that are not in ICMM, take on this issue of nature and we deliver on the commitments that we've set out, it'll make a material difference to the reputation and perception of our industry.

Colin Hamilton: That's really interesting. We talk about the industry, we want a clean energy transition, we need mining. I mean, that's a message that has been reiterated by the industry time and time again. It's starting to get a little bit of traction. I think it is interesting. We discussed last year how we have added this critical mineral stream to our conference. How do you think things are going in terms of critical minerals has really brought mining commodities back to the forefront of geopolitics, of international discussions. It's interesting, at our conference this year we have US department of Energy. But if we look at what the US Department of Energy is doing, we have the Inflation Reduction Act, only something like 3% of that is going towards direct mining industry. So can you give us a bit of a status report on how things are going there?

Ro Dhawan: I have to start by congratulating you, Colin, and your colleagues at BMO because you were one of the first people to recognize how critical minerals has changed in the conversation around metals and mining. And you added it into your main conference theme and you have really had your finger on the pulse of why this changes the nature of how people see our industry. So well done. Look, I think it is a fascinating time because there is consensus now broadly on the need for metals and minerals in the energy transition. I think, Colin, there's also consensus on the fact that recycling is not going to get us there, important as it is. And there is consensus that we are not investing and opening new minds at the rate at which we need to. But that high standards of environmental and social responsibility are non-negotiable in the minds that we do operate and open in the future.

There is all this consensus that has been built over the last four or five years. So I take very much a glass half full view that in relatively short order, we have built good broad-based consensus on the role of metals and minerals in the transition, the need for high standards and the need to do things differently if we're going to grow supply at the pace that's needed. A good sign of this, Colin, just two weeks ago I was in Saudi Arabia for the Future Minerals Forum, a new addition to the global mining calendar and there were 85 ministers around the table. If you had told me five years ago that 85 countries would send top level

officials to a conversation on mining and minerals, I would've told you, you're mad. Because we've never seen this level of coordinated government consensus and support behind our sector.

But what's not yet happened, which is our task ahead, is to convert that level of interest and support into direct action that then leads to high standards, growth in supply and greater levels of support for the industry from the people whose support we need. And here it's the investors that need to provide the growth capital for the industry. It's people that need to come and work in the mining industry to grow us at the pace that we need. It's regulators who need to support the industry to get permits quicker in order to be able to grow supply at the pace required. And of course, most critically, it's local community support that allows us to open these mines.

But Colin, the answer to this does not lie from us as the industry saying, oh, regulators are stupid or investors are stupid or communities are stupid or people are stupid that they don't want to work in mining. There are reasons why we don't yet have the levels of support from these groups that's necessary. And the action on that starts with us. Yes, it involves others, but we need to show the leadership and do the things that are necessary to gain that support. All of it can be encapsulated, I think, Colin, in a very simple idea, that idea is a commitment backed by action, backed by transparency to mine with principles. If we do that, then we get the support from people and we'll get into what that means in practice.

Colin Hamilton: I mean, I think it's a very interesting statement. It sounds very simple. I mean, mine with principles. Just in your statements here, you talked about the complexity that's involved here. I think if I was to ask your members, they'd say, "Well, sustainability could be a minefield. It's hard." And you can see them mentally getting tangled in the weeds almost. You tied up with a few other industry bodies recently and came out with a report on standardization. What does that aim to achieve?

Ro Dhawan: Colin, we're in a situation where there are literally hundreds of ways that you can measure and report sustainable mining practices. That helps nobody. It doesn't help companies who are trying to find the correct and clear way of demonstrating that they're mining with principles. It doesn't help investors who are trying to make sure they're investing in responsible companies. And it certainly doesn't help our stakeholders who are looking for confidence that we're doing things the right way. And so we have joined up as ICMM with three other standard owners to consolidate our respective standards of responsible mining into a common framework that any mine operating anywhere in the world, producing any commodity can use. So it's ICMM, the World Gold Council that has responsible gold mining principles, Copper Mark and the Mining Association of Canada that has the Towards Sustainable Mining program. These are four of the most widely adopted mining standards around the world and we

are working to bring those four into one common standard that will allow for gradated performance.

So there'll be an on-ramp for the early and companies that are still early in their journey. There will be levels of performance to show that the best performers are doing things that justify people rewarding them for their actions. And it will be backed, of course, by a clear assurance process so that everybody can be confident in what's being shown as standards of responsible mining. And probably most importantly, Colin, this will matter to many people, it will have an independent oversight system that is multi-stakeholder governed.

For the last 20 years that ICMM has had our standards of responsible mining, they've become a benchmark. We are of course governed by the industry 100%. And I can understand why people say, "Well, okay, how do I trust that? How do I trust that you're not just talking up your own book?" And that's why this standard will have an independent multi-stakeholder governance system. So that when it's ready, and we hope of course that this has the widest possible adoption across the industry, that all stakeholders can be confident that the metals and minerals that are so essential to decarbonization and the energy transition are being produced without causing undue harm to people or the planet.

Colin Hamilton: What I think is really interesting about this is if I'm a consumer, that should give me confidence. It's interesting, my background is from the manufacturing sector. We had ISO 9001 qualification, ISO 14001 qualification. These were standards that we knew we had to meet to sell to our customers and our customers demanded these. And I do see a situation where for the mining industry, this will give the consumers of metals that confidence. And I suppose what I'm thinking about, do we end up with something like responsible sourcing as a qualification process?

Ro Dhawan: Exactly.

Colin Hamilton: The moment we talk a lot about premiums and markets, actually if there's a qualification, then the best actors, the good actors get rewarded for it.

Ro Dhawan: That's exactly right, Colin. And it was interesting talking to some of the leading commodity traders in our business. Who are very clear with me to say, "No longer is price going to be the only qualifying criteria for the markets the metal can be sold into or indeed the way it's traded." And that's really positive to hear that even commodity traders recognize that these sustainability credentials are essentially a ticket to play in the market in the future. We're not there yet.

But you know, Colin, what gives me so much confidence? We talked about Davos earlier. At Davos, it wasn't just the CEOs of the largest mining companies who were standing up and making the commitments we did on nature. The

chief executive of Volvo was with us to say, "I am so pleased to see the industry do this. As a key buyer of your product, this gives me so much confidence. And I'm so happy to see that all of you are collaborating. You're not seeing sustainability necessarily as a competitive threat where each of you has to try and undercut the other. In fact, you're all agreeing to a common set of standards that you're going to adopt. As a consumer of your product and as the CEO of Volvo Group, that gives me a lot of confidence." So the pull is very much coming from the downstream.

Colin Hamilton: It's a global challenge, of course. What is interesting though, and I suppose what is a challenge, I would say, for the sector is that this is a long-term industry. You have to think longer term. Sadly, markets think shorter term these days. And we've got a lot more data to give us economic trends, et cetera. Now if I sit here, with the exception of maybe uranium, iron ore and gold, all the commodities I cover are lower than at this point in last year. People are making less money. It makes it a little bit harder to have these commitments. How do you ensure that this is still going to be one of the core trends? As particularly as I would say maybe ESG is evolving. One of the sessions at our conference this year will be around almost ESG 2.0, maturing of ESG standards. Where do you see us sitting in that from a mining industry point of view?

Ro Dhawan: Colin, I think the short-term fluctuations that we've seen in the price of commodities like lithium and nickel, which of course are central to the transition. And for a long time we've been predicting that there will be shortages of these, at the moment prices would suggest otherwise of course. Look, our industry is cyclical and people are used to the cyclicality. And what we are seeing now I think will separate the real committed ESG players from those that were using it as a nice to have. And that's maybe the silver lining in this disruption is that it really is going to separate people who are truly serious from people that thought this was a fad. Your point though about long-term nature of the industry is such a good one. And there are a couple of numbers that I think we should just keep in mind to give us a sense of the gap between where we are and where we need to be.

Take commodity like copper, where we estimate that by 2030 the amount of growth capital that's needed in the next six to seven years to get us to 2030 for copper supply to be where it is around $250 billion of growth capital. Currently, committed growth capital for the copper industry is in the region of $50 to $60 billion. We're well off where we need to be. And that is giving you a signal that we're not doing the things in the short-term that are going to get us to a long-term future. Colin, the other way to think about the long-term nature of our industry is that in the last two decades, by and large, we've opened in the region of 130 large scale industrialized mines. The average time it took to open one of those mines was just under 16 years, but the range was between five and 32 years.

So 16 years is a very long time to go from first discovery through to commercial production. We need to bring that number down. But as I said before, if you take the glass half full view at it, clearly there are parts of the world that are able to do that because we've opened some minds and as little as six years. And we need to remember how long it really takes to open a mine and the things we need to do to be able to accelerate that for people to really be able to bring the supply on stream.

The final point about investment, Colin, and the number that I think I want people to take away from this is that last year spending on exploration was the highest it's been in the last decade, and it was around the $13 billion mark. Now that's still lower than what it was in 2012, and half of that was on gold. So for all the talk about the need to find more of these transition minerals and metals, there isn't enough investment going into the exploration side, there isn't enough investment going into opening new mines. And when you then project that out to the next seven years or indeed to 2050, you can see the bottlenecks building if we don't do things differently now.

Colin Hamilton: I suppose if we think of how investors are thinking, they would say, "Well, that's great, but at the end of the day, we want money back and the mining industry's maybe not deployed capital in the best way." And that involves maybe a change of mindset, both in terms of growth CapEx and almost sustaining CapEx or sustainability improvement capital. Change is hard. I mean, when you're talking to your members, how do you overcome that natural inertia of the status quo, as I would term it, where you've got easy to say it's someone else's problem or take the mañana approach, let's do it tomorrow. How do you bash a few heads together and get consensus around what you did around nature positive mining? Because I think it's great to get, I mean, these are powerful people all aligned in the same way.

Ro Dhawan: Colin, at the risk of maybe being a bit complacent, I would say the industry, at least those 24 companies in ICMM, already have a high level of consensus on what's required, we are already collaborating and we are already delivering on strong commitments. What perhaps we don't yet have is the level of consensus and support we feel would be necessary from investors, regulators and other stakeholders to get behind similar commitments and make those the norm so that you essentially don't end up penalizing those that are trying to do the right thing. Let me just use a couple of simple examples, Colin. We, of course, committed, following the tragedy at Brumadinho in 2019, which killed 272 people, the anniversary of which is in January of this year, that all ICMM members will adopt a global industry standard on tailings management. Now, fortunately, because of the actions of investors like the Church of England Pensions Board, many companies that are not in ICMM have also committed adopting that standard, but it's still far from universal adoption.

So can we have a full press effort from everybody to say, "Look, any significant mine must be in conformance with the global industry standard on tailings

management." That would help so much to make this the norm. Similarly, it's been almost 22 years today that ICMM members committed that we would not mine or operate in a World Heritage Site. Sadly, that still remains the exception rather than the norm. World Heritage Sites are still open for exploration, mining and other industrial activity. I keep asking ministers to make it a law so that nobody can mine in World Heritage Sites. That's the kind of support that others now need to provide the industry based on the actions that we have tried to take to show leadership. So that these become the baseline expectation of mining everywhere, and it's not left up to just the goodwill or the leadership of a group of companies, as important as that is, at some point, this has to become the norm.

Colin Hamilton: Just to finish up, I mean, we're in a world where it's very easy to be pessimistic, but as you said, you're a glass half full man, you're an optimist at heart. What gives you optimism about the outlook for the world and for how the mining industry can play into that?

Ro Dhawan: Colin, I'll have to get personal here. I grew up in a relatively poor family. I say relatively poor because we were lucky enough to have a roof over our heads all the time, but we didn't really have food at the end of every week. And I think about my life today, which is very different, and that's only a span of maybe 15 to 20 years where that's changed. And if we can have that level of change in my own little personal family, but I've seen that in many people else and those that were in much worse circumstances. I'm positive that with the kind of principled action that hopefully we as ICMM stand to represent, it's possible to grow and to change lives significantly for the better. And Colin, when I look around the world and parts of the world that I've lived in Africa and in India, and I think about the one sector that has the potential to radically transform the lives of families like mine and families that were in much worse circumstance, it's mining.

It's the ability to take natural wealth and convert that into economic wealth, financial wealth, social wealth. You can do that when you mine with principles. You can do that when you mine responsibly. And of course, we need to keep in mind that if we don't do it responsibly, you can make things a lot worse. But Colin, if my own family's little story is an example of what's possible when people are given an opportunity, I think our industry, given the growth we can expect to see in our industry, is going to provide the opportunity for that level of transformation for literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people around the world. And how can that not be a source of optimism?

Colin Hamilton: Ro, you never disappoint with your insights, particularly with your passion to improve the world we're all custodians of. Positive change can happen with the right direction, the right mindset, the right commitment and the right leadership. Thank you again for having the hard conversations.

Ro Dhawan: Colin, thank you so much.

Michael Torrance: Thanks for listening to Sustainability Leaders. This podcast is presented by BMO. You can find our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. Press the follow button if you want to get notified when new episodes are published. We value your input, so please leave a rating, review and any feedback that you might have or visit us at bmo.com/sustainabilityleaders. Our show and resources are produced with support from BMO's marketing team and Puddle Creative. Until next time, thanks for listening and have a great week.

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