ICMM’s company members together account for one-third of the global mining industry. In this presentation Rohitesh Dhawan outlines the roadmap to a safe, just, and sustainable world enabled by responsibly produced minerals and metals.

Themes raised will include the transformative potential of mining, the value of approaching sustainability through an SDG lens, and the need to develop a shared vision of sustainability through collaboration to gain the trust and support of society.

Ma’aden is among the fastest-growing mining companies in the world and the largest multi-commodity mining and metals company in the Middle East. Ma'aden pioneered the mining industry in Saudi Arabia, building a world-class, unique, and fully integrated mining value chain. Ma’aden is  a key player in the long-term diversification of Saudi Arabia economy.

• How far along the energy transition roadmap is the mining industry? What have been the key achievements? What are the major roadblocks? Has the energy transition been delayed to the Ukraine- Russia conflict?
• What has been the reaction of the investment community to the mining industry’s energy transition roadmap? Have new converts i.e., non-traditional natural resource investors been won over? What further steps does the mining industry need to take?
• “The world doesn’t know that mining exists”. What steps can the mining industry take to change public perception?
• How can the mining industry play a role in reversing the impact of climate change?

• Was Elon Musk correct to say ESG ratings ‘make no sense’? 
• When we talk about the need for more meaningful ESG data what do we mean? 
• Which are the key ESG standards and methodologies that miners should follow and why?
• Reviewing the latest industry attempts to consolidate ESG standards and ratings. What further consolidation and collaboration still needs to be done?

• From theory to practice: what does mining in a circular economy really mean? How do mining business models need to change? How can the industry move from 30% by 2030 as a static business model to a dynamic one? What role will renewable energy solutions (green hydrogen, solar, recycling) play?
• Balancing miners technical and financial requirements with social and environmental aspects. What is the role of local communities?
• What is the role of governments in helping enable mining’s role in the circular economy?

• What projected increase in lithium production can we expect to see in the next 10 years? How dependant is it upon high lithium carbonate prices?
• Where do the best opportunities for lithium investors lie? At the exploration stage or at production?
• A well-known mining investor recently said “80% of US300million market cap battery metals companies will never go into production. Do our panellists agree with this statement and if so is meeting demand destined for failure?
• How at risk is lithium to substitution?
• What will be the impact of lithium recycling?

Watch mining companies go head-to-head, with only 3 minutes to pitch every second counts, pitching in front of a judging panel of leading investors as they sell their project, pitching for feedback, investment, and prizes.

Leading investors will judge the battle by which company they would hypothetically invest US$1,000,000 in, if they were looking for best ROI after one year.

Understanding how recycling can help ease the supply gaps for the mining sector 
• How can recycling contribute significantly to ESG mandates and decarbonisation goals aligned with the Paris Agreement?
• Evaluating the latest technologies that mining companies and their suppliers can use to help reduce-reuse-recycle
• What has been the impact of recycling in attracting ESG investment, reducing emissions, yielding materials including steel, black carbon, fuel oil/gas and creating cost efficiencies?

• With so many data points to choose from, how to you select which ones are the most relevant to base decisions on?
• What does an optimised workflow look like in practice?
• What is the role of human intuition and experience in decision-making? Or should you trust your AI recommendations 100%?

• Which key commodity supply chains have been the most impacted by the Ukraine-Russia conflict? 
• What has been the response of governments in delivering security of supply? Reviewing key policy initiatives that have been introduced. Is the outcome of this a move towards resource nationalism and protectionism rather than free trade? 
• Examining the proposed EU Battery Passports regulation and what impact it will have on battery metal supply chains
• What has been the response of the mining industry? How can it ‘plug the gap’ to fill the commodity demand due to international sanctions against Russia?
• What is the opportunity for mining to play a role in a ‘Marshall Plan’ rebuilding effort in Ukraine?

Glencore recycling is a market leader in the recycling of copper and precious metals.
In this conversation Kunal will discuss:
• sourcing recyclable materials from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), other end-of-life sources and processors
• sampling and value determination
• smelting and refining
• marketing directly to their industrial customers

• How is ESG changing mineral supply chains? Are market participants communicating with each other properly? If we were to mark the industry on a score of 1 to 10, what would it get and why? Where is it succeeding and where is it failing short?
• What practical initiatives can the mining industry take to build local partnerships in the procurement process
• Evaluating the growth and opportunity of regional and shorter supply chains
• Ensuring that the S in ESG is not forgotten; practical advice on community building and partnerships

• Where do the panellists see the greatest opportunities in the junior gold space? What projects are catching their eye?
• To what extent will the gold of tomorrow come from new discoveries rather than increasing production at existing mine sites?
• Can smaller companies survive and prosper in today’s mining world?    
• How dependant is gold exploration and production on the price of gold? What prices levels need to be maintained?

• Understanding total emissions impact across the value chain
• Prioritising actions, like efficiency and electrification initiatives, to deliver your net-zero commitment
• Developing a credible carbon offset approach, including measures to avoid, reduce and remove emissions
• Evaluating the technology options available to help reduce Scope 3 emissions

Endiama is a national company dedicated to the prospecting, exploration, and marketing of diamonds. It operates in the national territory as exclusive operator and concessionaire in the management of the diamond sub-sector value chain.

• A common observation of the mining industry is whilst it is making significant progress in the E and the G of ESG, it is still lagging on the S. Where and why is it failing short on the S?
• Mining for good: reviewing success stories of the mining industry engaging with local communities – what were the lessons learned?
• Ensuring you have vigorous community engagement processes on the ground
• What does social license mean to a mining company in 2022?

Watch mining companies go head-to-head, with only 3 minutes to pitch every second counts, pitching in front of a judging panel of leading investors as they sell their project, pitching for feedback, investment, and prizes.

Leading investors will judge the battle by which company they would hypothetically invest US$1,000,000 in, if they were looking for best ROI after one year.

Douglas has over 35 years of mining experience, operations engineering in deep underground metal mines, and consulting internationally on mine safety and productivity. His focus has always been on safety and innovation, and he recognizes that the current technology platforms for mine production and mine tailings management must be transformed if mining is to meet the supply demand for the Green Transition to a low-carbon economy and help create a Globally Sustainable Society™

• Situation Why? What are the hallmarks of a technology laggard? Why would one call the mining industry a technology laggard? Has this always been the case? Are there any areas where this is / is not the case? Why is technological innovation leadership important? What are we looking for? What are we trying to solve? Where do you see a particular need for innovation, e.g., ESG, safety, exploration, productivity, financing, supply chain management? What else?

• Problem definition: How? How would you define success in technology innovation? What have been the biggest struggles for being innovative? Having new ideas or being able to implement? What else is missing? Do you have examples where these challenges been overcome successfully?

• Trends: What? What are the most exciting trends, biggest promises? Have they been achieved? Who are the leaders? If you had a magic wand, what would you wish for in terms of innovation in mining? What would need to be done to get there?

Mark Bristow is recognised as one of the world’s leading mining CEOs and was a winner of the Mines and Money Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. Mark has been a passionate advocate of where the industry is falling short in exploration and what it needs to do differently to succeed in exploration as part of a sustainable strategy

In this fireside chat will discuss how Alcoa have reimagined the whole process of smelting and their key to success of mining more sustainably from the the beginning 

The inaugural Future Minerals Summit in Riyadh in January 2022 was an unqualified success with over 4000 attendees. In this panel we discuss where the opportunities lie in this land of untapped mineral riches

• How is the industry repositioning ESG as a strategic imperative in M&A strategy
• How does the shareholder focus on ESG concerns impact M&A and M&A assessment and the ability to get deals done?  
• Seeing ESG as source of opportunity as well as risk in M&A transactions
• Managing risk and successful transaction execution – how do you measure environmental and social impact?

How to ensure tangible value is gained from ESG.

• Examining copper demand projections for the next 10 years vs projected future supply. What can be practically done to fill the shortfall? Are there any substitutions / alternatives available?
• What key copper mining investment opportunities are our panellists looking at? Is the higher price of copper compared with say 2 years ago putting investors off? Where do the panellists think the price of copper will be in 5 years’ time? 10 years’ time?
• Taking a closer look at the importance of copper grade quality, orebody type and porphyries in filling the shortfall

Watch mining companies go head-to-head, with only 3 minutes to pitch every second counts, pitching in front of a judging panel of leading investors as they sell their project, pitching for feedback, investment, and prizes.

Leading investors will judge the battle by which company they would hypothetically invest US$1,000,000 in, if they were looking for best ROI after one year.

Northern Star is a global-scale Australian gold producer with world class projects located in highly prospective and low sovereign risk regions of Australia and North America.

Northern Star has a portfolio of high-quality, high-margin underground and open pit gold mines.

In this presentation Stuart will explain how the company is firmly focused on delivering superior shareholder returns by investing in building its asset base through strategic acquisitions and aggressive exploration to extend the mine lives across its operations.

• Does the mining industry collaborate and partner enough? 
• What can be learnt from other industries? What lessons can be learnt from academia?
• How effectively is mining partnership and collaboration being promoted at the government and inter-government level?
• Reviewing examples of successful industry collaboration in practice

• How does ESG influence how investors assess the value of the deal? What due diligence steps should you take?
• How will ESG themes playing into M&A strategy? Can ESG be a differentiator and driver of value and a driver of M&A activity?
• Emphasising the importance of stakeholder engagement – it is invariably the S that causes project delays
• Analysing the regulation and reporting requirements of ESG financing
• Carbon Credits and Carbon Pricing – is this the way forward for the mining industry? How are exploration companies using it as a source of finance?

• Identifying the drivers behind the decision to adopt greater automation and remote working
• Allaying worker concerns that automation leads to reskilling not redundancy
• What were the efficiencies achieved?

• How portable XRF can help identify drill targets, increase discovery rates, make on-site decisions, and pinpoint where to focus on the grid
• What are the benefits of portable XRF in improving lab quality performance?
• Achieving exploration efficiencies by shortening campaign timelines by isolating areas of interest and by no longer waiting for test results and save money on external lab tests by deploying pre-screening of samples to minimize additional costs
• How can portable XRF’s help increase productivity and improve sustainability?

The NORCAT Underground Centre in Sudbury, Ontario is the only regional innovation centre in the world with an operating mine designed to enable start-ups, small / medium enterprises, and international companies to develop, test, and demonstrate innovative and emerging technologies in an operating mine environment.  This “active laboratory” helps to connect and broker relationships between mining technology companies - “the builders of innovation” and global mining companies - “the buyers of innovation” to create an ecosystem unlike anywhere in the world.

In this presentation, the main barriers precluding emerging technologies from being adopted by the global mining industry will be explored, followed by an in-depth case study on how the NORCAT Underground Centre has become the global destination to see, touch, and de-risk emerging technologies that are poised to transform the mining industry.

Kathryn is an expert in mineral processing. In her presentation she will explain how space technology and scientific development can benefit mining back on earth.

• Which of the SDGs apply to mining?
• What work has been done by industry associations to drive forward SDGs?
• What has been the response of the mining industry? What has been the response of local communities?
• How can SDGs help achieve DE&I (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?

• What are the key ESG criteria that investors use when assessing juniors? On a scale of 1 to 10 how do they rate juniors? Where are they succeeding and where are they falling short?
• How does what a mining company need to do at the exploration stage in terms of an actionable ESG strategy and how does that differ to say, a mining company at development or production?
• Lessons learned from ‘S’ success stories from the front line of mining juniors who have engaged successfully with local communities

• How did digital mining technology help Exxaro Resources overcome the challenges caused by Covid-19?
• Identifying some of the production efficiencies achieved through digital innovation?
• Examining some of the ways in which asset reliability has been enhanced
• Understanding some of the key safety improvements that digital innovation has brought to the workplace

• What solutions are there to make mine rehabilitation economic?
• Evaluating some of the tailings management business models being introduced?
• What further partnerships and collaboration opportunities are being developed to establish the tailings status quo

Mining has one of the highest median gender pay gaps of any industry—an estimated 25 percent in the UK alone. This Dialogue Table explores what practical steps the mining industry can take to rectify this.

1.            

What are some of the recent pivots you have advised mining companies to make in regards to recent pressures (what are the pressure-cooker issues at the moment in mining value chain?)?

Which has been easier to convince clients of onboarding, and which have been more difficult and why?

2.            

What does the Future Work Culture/Environment look like to meet global ESG considerations and decarbonisation targets?

What are some trends in skills development/types of new skills that the mining sector has been seeing in recent years? What are some skillsets that the mining sector will have to include in future? 

3.            

Considering that we have women from all aspects of mining present--ASMs, administrators, lawyers, and geologists--what would be your key message to everyone in the room to apply within their daily work? [I will refine this question, but this question is also to make sure that both partners try to think about the atypical women in mining client for your business]

• Examining the hydrogen solutions being developed to accelerate the energy transition
• What role can the mining industry play? How much platinum is required? What innovations have we seen at mine sites?
• Where do the best investment opportunities lie within the hydrogen space?

Watch mining companies go head-to-head, with only 3 minutes to pitch every second counts, pitching in front of a judging panel of leading investors as they sell their project, pitching for feedback, investment, and prizes.

Leading investors will judge the battle by which company they would hypothetically invest US$1,000,000 in, if they were looking for best ROI after one year.

• How to combine modern data mining, artificial intelligence and prospectivity mapping technologies to optimise accuracy in mineral exploration
• Improving your value from drilling by investing in smart technologies
• Investing in R&D to improve discovery rates and create a step-change in exploration
• Optimising cognitive computing to gain new exploration insights

• What are the key critical minerals required to resource tomorrow? Is it just battery metals + rare earths + uranium or is it more nuanced? Or is every mineral a critical mineral?
• Where are the key supply crunches? What practical steps can the mining industry take to alleviate this?
• Reviewing the impact of global government initiatives such as the US Critical Minerals Policy Act and Biden’s Executive Orders

• Outlining the objectives of the Critical Minerals expert committee. How has the mining industry responded? How has academia contributed?
• What’s on the UK critical minerals list and why?
• The importance of ESG: how can responsible sourcing and data traceability of critical minerals be achieved by the UK?
• How is the UK collaborating with other governments in driving critical minerals policy?

• How important is decarbonisation and the energy transition to alternative financiers? How have their investment criteria changed as a result?
• How popular are alternative finance solutions (i.e., private equity, royalty & streaming, flow through shares etc) and is their usage increasing or decreasing?
• Which alternative finance solutions make sense for whom? What types of mining companies are alternative financiers looking to invest in, and what are the key criteria that they use?
• What innovations are we seeing in the alternative finance space?

In this panel we hear from leading fund managers who have embraced decarbonisation. In this session they will discuss their thinking towards decarbonisation, how it has changed the way they invest, and where they see the best investment opportunities.

• How have the panellists changed their investment policies because of the Ukraine-Russia conflict?
• How does an investor evaluate the risk / reward of a country where there is a history of resource nationalism?
• A government’s life expectancy may typically be 5 years whilst a mining life cycle from exploration to end of production may be 20 years – how can this mismatch be balanced from the perspective of risk management?
• Where does ESG fit into geopolitical risk management?

Our Nex Gen programme attracted over 50 students from Imperial College, The Camborne School of Mines, and the University of Dundee to our last event. For 2022 we have expanded our Nex Gen programme as part of our commitment to encouraging more young people to pursue a career in mining to help Resource Tomorrow. 
• What attracted our panellists to a career in mining? What have they enjoyed most about their mining career so far? Is there anything they wish was different about the mining industry?
• How diverse and inclusive have they found the mining industry?
• How relevant was their degree?

Ellen’s role includes designing and implementing a global government and community affairs strategy, work proactively with government authorities and communities to develop long-term relationships, develop partnerships with organizations such as industry associations, think tanks, among others to support the company's growth.

• How does the mining industry rate as a sector as an appealing place to work compared with other sectors? Where is it succeeding? Where is it falling short?
• What initiatives have the panellists undertaken to attract candidates at both the graduate entry level but also at more senior candidates considering a career switch?
• Are there enough quality applicants? Is there a mismatch in what is being taught at places of Higher Education / universities and what is required by the mining industry?
• How has the mining industry responded to the growth of WFH?

Watch mining companies go head-to-head, with only 3 minutes to pitch every second counts, pitching in front of a judging panel of leading investors as they sell their project, pitching for feedback, investment, and prizes.

Leading investors will judge the battle by which company they would hypothetically invest US$1,000,000 in, if they were looking for best ROI after one year.