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Striving for sustainability in every facet of the gold mining industry's value chain is imperative and while considerable progress has been made in several areas, including responsible practices and reporting, as well as decarbonisation, there is still work to be done in other areas, such as gender parity and bolstering the involvement of junior miners.

This was noted by industry organisation World Gold Council (WGC) climate change lead and market relations director John Mulligan.

Speaking to Mining Weekly from the Investing in African Mining Indaba, in Cape Town, Mulligan averred that the gold mining industry represented by the WGC's member, had shown "great awareness" of most of the key aspects of sustainability, because investors and local stakeholders had demanded it, while societal expectations for this increasing over the past few years had also played a key driving force.

He emphasised that gold and the gold mining industry had a crucial, two-fold role to play in the just energy transition.

Firstly, while the resource is not part of the basket of critical minerals that many governments identify as key inputs in renewable energy technologies, it certainly has a role to play in facilitating both local decarbonisation and resilience.

Secondly, and importantly, Mulligan highlighted the significant role that gold mining could and had played in actually delivering renewable energy projects, with many companies undertaking projects on or adjacent to their operations.

He cited the example of a large-scale solar plant at Gold Fields' South Deep gold mine, in South Africa, where the mining sector exerted pressure on the government to change regulation to allow for self-generation of energy.

In the country, investing in renewable energy projects for own generation has allowed mining companies to decarbonise their operations, buffered them somewhat from the impacts of the country's energy crisis and, as Mulligan pointed out, introduced renewable technologies into areas in the country that may otherwise have been economically unviable.

"Mining companies are therefore able to decarbonise their own operations, while at the same time bringing cleaner energy to remote and rural areas that may not otherwise have had capacity and access," Mulligan acclaimed, adding that this wasplaying out across the continent as well.

"Gold miners can lay claim to being leaders in having brought renewable energy at an industrial scale to the process and having demonstrated to other parts of the South African economy that it is viable."

To engender sustainability in other areas of the gold mining value chain, Mulligan pointed out that key for the WGC had been the launch of the Responsible Gold Mining Principles (RGMPs) in 2019.

Compulsory for all WGC members, these are 51 principles and ten overarching principles, which seek to encourage good practice and high standards of performance, across the entire spectrum of responsible business practice.

Mulligan highlighted that this provided tangible proof of responsible mining, as companies had to demonstrate what responsibility meant, and the performance they were designed to encourage was also independently verified.

With the WGC members representing about two-thirds of all global corporate gold mining production, Mulligan asserted that, over the next reporting cycle, a considerable percentage of gold would have been demonstrated to have been produced under transparent conditions in terms of high-quality sustainability responsibility practices.

He informed that reporting began gathering pace last year, after a delay from the pandemic, with about half of the members now reporting full adherence to the cycle.

He also attested to the meticulousness of the RGMPs, with the council undertaking a very "consultative process" in its development - liaising with members about their performance on specific issues, as well as engagements w...