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15/11/2019

Sustainable Mining for Sustainable Development

More than 110 experts met last week in Brno, Czech Republic, to participate in the International Conference on Sustainable Mining organised by Těžební unie (Czech Mining Association) in cooperation with Euromines, under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic and the Czech Mining Authority.

More than 110 experts met last week in Brno, Czech Republic, to participate in the International Conference on Sustainable Mining organised by Těžební unie (Czech Mining Association) in cooperation with Euromines, under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic and the Czech Mining Authority.

Stakeholders representing the industry, policy makers and governmental institutions, regional authorities, NGOs, the innovation community and universities discussed growing public and political urgency around sustainability that has resulted in wide-ranging and ambitious global policy measures. Policies include the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Framework Convention on Climate Change (including the Paris Agreement) plus the European Commission’s strategic long-term vision for a prosperous, modern, competitive and climate neutral economy by 2050 – Clean Planet for All Communication from November 2018 as well as the policy on Circular Economy. Conference participants discussed the contribution and solutions the raw materials sector can deliver to achieve these policy goals.

The first conference day focused on the energy self-sufficiency and carbon neutrality issues. The representatives of major European mining companies provided their views on new challenges related to variability, infrastructure and energy storage. Metals and minerals are crucial for carbon neutrality, and the European mineral raw materials industry has radically progressed in productivity and energy efficiency and is still implementing new solutions aiming at further reducing the energy consumption/unit and improving carbon-intensive operations.

The role of mineral resources for the EU economy was discussed on the second conference day. The pressing question is how to make Europe attractive for investments in the development of innovative climate-neutral and sustainable solutions and financing their uptake in the face of increasing global competition. This will require increasing (and sometime even doubling) current levels of investments.

The conference speakers clearly demonstrated that the European raw materials sector is using state-of-the-art technologies to save resources and is exploring new ways of recovering resources from older waste deposits as well as looking for synergies with other industries to improve material flows through society and increase their values.

The afternoon block covered the issues of sustainable water and waste management. For sustainability to be a cornerstone of policy and action, Europe must bring together a plurality of tools to enable contribution by all citizens whilst improving quality of life and competitiveness. Sustainable water and waste management are one of these tools.

The dialogue on sustainable mining with all involved stakeholders should continue and the industry associations are committed to supporting this goal.

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