Eleonore Lebre
The University of Queensland
Eleonore is about to finish her PhD at the University of Queensland in Australia. Before that, she graduated from the MSc Industrial Ecology program at NTNU in Norway, as part of a European double degree agreement between NTNU and her home engineering school in France.
Declines in global ore grade are increasing the environmental footprint of the extractive industry, in particular through higher energy and water consumption and waste generation. Although a variety of sustainability frameworks designed for the mining industry define principles and strategies to improve the industry’s sustainability performance, most of these frameworks are missing a key characteristic related to the fundamentally different nature of mining compared with other industrial activities: the mineral resource itself. Indeed, the assessment of a mining project’s sustainability should be articulated around the way it manages to create value and minimise waste, from an ore deposit with unique properties and which contains minerals essential to society’s development.
This research project intends to improve the understanding of a mine site’s metabolism through the observation of its internal mineral flows. A set of material flow indicators (MFIs) has been developed for this purpose, with a particular emphasis on quantifying mineral losses, which occur through different dissipative mechanisms (e.g. seepage from waste dumps and sterilisation of the remaining resource), and with an evaluation on whether these losses are irreversible or potentially recoverable. The MFIs have been applied on two Australian case studies, the former gold mine Mount Morgan in Queensland, and the copper mine Mount Lyell in Tasmania. Having been under operation for a long time, both mine sites hosted several mining ventures whose performances have been compared using the MFIs. This comparison allowed for exhibiting the conditions that would prolong the life of mining operations and increase mineral recovery, either from the mineral deposit or by recycling mining waste, and would thus improve the sustainability credentials of a mine site. A life cycle perspective was then taken to consider the entire life of the mine, and observed how unplanned and incomplete closures, interruption periods and poor waste management all contributed in exacerbating mineral losses.
The MFIs results were then used to explore political incentives that could stimulate a positive change in mining practices. The incentives were classified and investigated at three levels: mine waste management, the mine, and the entire metal supply chain. The feasibility and practicality of their implementation were evaluated, as well as their capability for supporting more sustainable business models within the mining industry. A set of incentives have been proposed to achieve better economic and environmental outcomes for past, current and future mines. For past/closed mines, this would entail addressing the growing concern of abandoned sites with high environmental legacies. For current mines, incentives would focus on improving the resilience of mining projects, thus enabling prolonged operations that would enhance mineral extraction. For future mines, guidance would be provided for a transition towards more circular metal cycles, notably by strengthening the mining industry’s involvement with the rest of the supply chain and developing expertise in metal recycling.
• Sustainable business models , • Business and industry practices / case studies , • Public policy and governance
