Building Resilience

A sustainable path to development has profound consequences for all economic activities and related policies. The mining industry, which provides input to almost every product and service in the world, is highly relevant to the goal of achieving sustainable development in mineral-rich countries and in the global economy. In addition, environmental sustainability is a critical concern for mining companies, whose growth is increasingly affected by climate change. Given the centrality of minerals and metals to our way of living, Building Resilience: A Green Growth Framework for Mobilizing Mining Investment investigates the extent to which the mining industry can contribute to green growth. Despite what ought to be a tight nexus of public and private interest in targeted green sector investment, this report finds that there is a misalignment between mining companies’ investment in climate-sensitive production processes, and policy makers’ efforts to develop a cohesive green economy framework for industry to navigate. The private and public sectors regard the climate agenda and the development of local economic opportunity as separate matters. Neither industry nor government have yet to effectively leverage their climate imperatives and mandates to seize green growth opportunities. To address this misalignment, this report proposes a framework to help mining companies and governments integrate climate change and local economic opportunity activities. Going further, the report offers examples of projects and policies that support green growth: particularly climate-related activities that create scalable economic value and invest in long-lasting green infrastructure.