The Investor Mining & Tailings Safety Initiative is an investor-led engagement convening institutional investors active in extractive industries including major asset owners and asset managers. Inputs into the investor process have been sought from communities impacted by the recent disaster, leading international experts, government representatives, leading international technical advisors as well as company representatives.
The Investor Mining & Tailings Safety Initiative is governed through a Steering Committee Chaired by the Church of England Pensions Board and the Swedish Council of Ethics of the AP Funds.
This has led to a number of interventions. The first was a call for a new independent and publicly accessible international standard for tailings dams based upon the consequences of failure. Investors have been pleased to see that in response to their call, a global review was announced and co-convened by the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM), the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The second intervention requesting detailed disclosure on tailings storage facilities is outlined below.
Following the catastrophic tailings dam failure at the Córrego do Feijão mining facility in Brumadinho, Minas Gerias, Brazil, which led to the loss of over 245 lives, and 25 missing people (as of May 2019), a group of institutional investors (now representing more than $13 trillion assets under management) have written to 726 extractive companies seeking greater disclosure on the management of tailings storage facilities.
Access the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative here.