By Paul Gorman
Data allowing mining companies to ‘look inside the Earth before we actually put a spade in the ground’ is playing a crucial role in making the industry more environmentally friendly.
Geoscientist and science communicator Dr Christopher Jackson, Technical Director Subsurface at WSP, is a proponent of using geophysical data more smartly to improve mining’s sustainability.
Jackson would also like the industry to listen more closely to those affected by its operations.
Being able to see early on what is below the surface reduces exploration and development risks.
‘We can then be more targeted in our operations, so we can have a smaller footprint and therefore reduce the environmental impact. Those two things together will lead us to a position where maybe social acceptance or the public acceptance of our operation will go up.
‘So, it has a benefit in many different ways – not only allowing us to be more targeted but allowing mining to progress in a more sustainable and respectful and mindful way.’
Responsible mining is not just connected to the appropriate development and deployment of technologies, he said.
‘It’s actually a human thing that needs to change. Responsible mining is going to need us, as geoscientists, to go out into communities where mineral exploration is happening, or may happen, and really engage in a two-way dialogue with those communities, and find out what they want to know.
‘So the saying goes, “don’t tell them what we think they need to know, find out what they want to know”, and frame our conversations with those communities around that. So, listening first and talking afterwards.’
By doing that, the industry could ‘enhance the social licence to operate’, Jackson said.
‘We can get the community to buy in to what we want to do. The question is, are we ready to look at these non-technical ways of solving a problem?
‘We often focus a lot on the technological salvation but not really on ourselves and what we can do to allow what we want to do to happen.’