Mining and the SDGs: A 2020 Status Update

Abstract

The mining industry, through its extensive activities and prominent presence in developing countries, has strong linkages with issues covered in all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These linkages are clearly set out in the 2016 Mapping Mining to the Sustainable Development Goals: An Atlas, produced by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the World Economic Forum. With just ten years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by the target date of 2030 and four years after the publication of the Atlas, this report provides a status update of what large-scale mining companies are currently doing to integrate the SDGs into their business strategies and to take proactive measures that will help deliver these Goals. It is also a reminder of the opportunities that the mining industry has to positively influence achievement of the SDGs, and simultaneously a caution on the inherent risks that mining activities pose that might impede the achievement of the SDGs. This influence that the mining industry can bring to bear is all the more important given the serious implications of the COVID-19 on progress to achieve the SDGs.