Companies need to demonstrate that they are operating to high standards of performance across all relevant governance, social and environmental issues and impacts and, if they are not meeting these standards, to show how they intend to improve to meet these standards. To that end, they need:

• The requirements of these standards to be defined and agreed with investors and other stakeholders, including potentially affected rightsholders.
• Greater alignment and integration between the various responsible mining standards/frameworks and standards/frameworks being used by investors to assess responsible behaviour
• Performance against these standards to be independently assessed by a credible entity.
• Internal implementation processes and governance processes that are effective at ensuring these commitments are met.

This objective aims to improve company social and environmental performance by developing investor expectations on transparency, processes and on performance that are aligned with global and industry standards.

To secure the metals and minerals to meet the needs of the energy transition, mining needs to occur at high environmental and social standards. This would help pre-empt negative consumer sentiment/ backlash and help mining companies garner stakeholder buy-in for expanding operations quickly and smoothly. To achieve this, miners need support of a wide range of their stakeholders.

One of these critical stakeholder groups is value chain companies that purchase, trade, or use processed raw material inputs from miners. These companies can, and should, send a consistent message to mining enterprises that they are expected to operate at high performance standards. This needs to be combined with procurement processes that incentivise good mining practices and enable more reliable supply of the higher quantities of commodities required to meet future needs . To do this, value chain companies should:

• Set clear expectations and requirements in their procurement and sourcing processes of mining standards that they expect to be upheld, which should be aligned with Investor Expectations (as defined in Workstream 1).

• Engage with the companies upstream of their business to encourage a consistent set of expectations from mining companies.

• Where relevant, offer incentives and mechanisms to encourage compliance with these expectations.

• Support the increase in traceability of metal and minerals supply chains to enable the responsible sourcing of minerals.

• Publish their responsible sourcing approach and be transparent on their progress towards aligning their supply chain with their stated expectations.

This workstream focuses on supporting downstream companies in their role in the system to drive enhancement of the social and environmental performance of mining enterprises that supply them.

Policy frameworks and regulation need to be robust and effectively implemented and enforced. Governments need to:

• Align with Investor Expectations on minimum threshold of existing global and industry governance, social and environmental performance standards
• Set strong mineral governance frameworks
• Effectively implement and enforce robust policies
• Have the technical capacity and availably to implement

This objective seeks to improve company governance, social and environmental performance by strengthening regulation and institutional frameworks to reinforce Investor Expectations on a minimum threshold of existing global and industry social and environmental performance standards.

Rightsholders and other affected stakeholders living near to mining operations are disproportionately impacted by mining-related harms. Whilst there are examples of good practices, there still often can be a lack of inclusion of, and respect for, the voices, rights and interests of affected stakeholders and rightsholders across the mining lifecycle. Mining can generate multiple benefits both nationally and locally, but how these benefits are distributed can be opaque and inequitable. Moreover, those most adversely affected by mining may not have access to these benefits, or may not receive an equitable share. Both a lack of inclusion of, and respect for, the voices, rights and interests of rightsholders and affected stakeholders, and the inequitable distribution of benefits, can generate or exacerbate mining-related disputes and conflict. This can prevent a company receiving a social licence to operate, cause costly delays and compromise value creation. To address this, investors need to:

1. Set and communicate clear expectations for companies to:
   • Ensure inclusion and respect the voices, rights and interests of rightsholders and affected stakeholders at all stages of the mining lifecycle;
   • Drive sustained and sustainable benefits locally and nationally; and
   • Enable fair and equitable distribution of these benefits, both in terms of the split between governments and affected stakeholders and rightsholders, and amongst those affected by mining-related harms.

Together these actions should stimulate prosperity and resilience amongst affected stakeholders and rightsholders. This will, in turn, reduce mining-related conflicts, create a social licence to operate, and support value creation.

2. Clear guidance on advocating for an enabling policy environment that supports the above, and for promoting transparent, standardised reporting on benefit creation and distribution.

This objective aims to support investors to stimulate prosperity and resilience amongst affected stakeholders and rightsholders- reducing mining-related conflicts, creating a social licence to operate, and supporting value creation.

Companies need to demonstrate that they can assess, manage and reduce drivers of conflict when operating in a conflict area or areas which are prone to conflict, when entering and withdrawing from a conflict area, when considering operating in a conflict prone area and when sourcing from a conflict area. Investors need to support companies through those processes and evaluate their own process of assessing risk in conflict areas.

This objective aims to reduce mining-related conflict by strengthening the identification and management of risks associated with mining impacts and revenues.

Although the exact figure and locations are not known, there are numerous historic legacy mining sites globally, many having enduring negative impacts on people and the environment. With thousands of currently operational mines expected to close in the next 10 to 25 years, it is necessary to address existing historic legacy issues while also avoiding and reducing future legacies through good planning and processes for mine closure and post-closure transitions.

There is no agreed definition of legacy. A holistic definition of legacy needs to be developed to encompass historic legacies, the planning and responsible closure of mines and setting positive future legacies from new mining and existing mining. A diagnosis of the overall problem needs to be conducted.

This objective seeks to drive safe and responsible mine closure and the creation of positive legacies for existing mining operations and address historic legacies of mining.

To incentivise good practice in the mining industry, the investment ecosystem needs to:

• Align on investor expectations of performance standards, and consistently integration of these standards into investment infrastructure, practices and processes
• Incentivise and support the adoption of good practice and high performance standards across the mining industry.

This objective is to determine the changes needed in the practices, processes and behaviours of investors and the investment system. It will identify how the outputs from Workstreams 1–6 can be aligned and integrated, and how these outputs can be integrated into investor practices and processes.