The 16th Forum on Responsible Mineral Supply Chains hosted by the OECD will be held in Paris, April 24-28, 2023. Consult the sessions where the Alliance for Responsible Mining and its partners will participate.
Please register here to attend the Mineral Credit Systems for ASM Gold and Cobalt: Driving Responsible Sourcing partner session organized by Fairphone, The Impact Facility and Alliance for Responsible Mining.
For more information and registration, click here.
MAIN SESSIONS
Main Forum sessions will take place on Wednesday, 26 and Thursday, 27 April 2023. The OECD organizes these sessions.
This 2023, we have the pleasure to announce that two ASM representatives from Colombia and Peru, and the ARM’s team will be panelists in the following main sessions.
Hours correspond to CET time.
Main Session 4 - Stepping up environmental due diligence in pursuit of a just transition
Wednesday, 26th of April, 2023, 4:30 – 5:45
Description: As the world transitions towards net zero, the rapid shift to green technologies is expected to drive a significant increase in demand for many minerals. While advances in recycling and material efficiency may reduce the overall environmental impact of producing green technology in the long term, the short term challenge is ensuring that increased mineral extraction, processing and trade is responsible. All companies in mineral supply chains have a role to play. This session will focus on how supply chain due diligence can effectively address upstream environmental risks, specific impacts of the transition on rightsholders, including through gender-responsive due diligence, and the broader policy landscape and evolving expectations on companies to conduct environmental due diligence.
Speakers:
– Jan Kosmol, Scientific Policy Officer, German Environment Agency
– Tobias Kind-Rieper, Global Lead Mining & Metals, World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF)
– Sophia Gnych, Policy Analyst, OECD
– Victor Zambrano, Tambopata National Reserve Management Committee
Main Session 5 - Exploring domestic drivers for responsible mineral supply chains
Thrusday, 27th of April, 2023, 10:00
Description: As minerals due diligence practices evolve around the world, the influence of local factors in producing countries on due diligence outcomes is increasingly clear. A strong policy environment and support of local stakeholders is key, demonstrating the need for innovative initiatives in producing countries. This session will explore a range of related topics and approaches that foster local incentives to drive responsible sourcing practices in producing countries.
Speakers:
– Fanny Frémont, Responsible Mica Initiative
– Hélène Helbig de Balzac, Datastake
– Désiré Nikiema, Alliance for Responsible Mining
Main Session 8 - Taking responsible finance to scale
Thrusday, 27th of April, 2023, 16:30
Description: Researchers, civil society and policymakers have long been aware of the barriers to responsible finance in the mining sector, and the challenge this poses to formalization of the small-scale sector, besides being a missed opportunity to bring new leverage across the sector in favour of responsible trade. The last several years have seen a range of new approaches and initiatives to operationalise responsible finance in the minerals trade, both within and beyond the informal sector, including initiatives that integrate a gendered perspective. Key to taking on this challenge will be bridging the gap between formal finance and institutions at a global level, and and the miners and communities on the margins that are in greatest need of access to these services, and often are trapped in a cycle of informality.
Speakers:
– Juliana Posada, La Gabriela mine, Taraza, Antioquia, Colombia.
– Hamado Derra, IMPACT
– Jill Cooper, Orion Resource Partners
PARTNER SESSIONS
Partner sessions will occur between Monday, 24 and Friday, 28 April 2023. These sessions are led by different organizations. ARM is co-leading the session of Mineral Credit Systems for ASM, click here to register. Additionally, we are glad to be panelists in other partner sessions; see below.
Hours correspond to CET time.
The role of formalisation of the ASM sector for due diligence and mitigation of child labour - showcased by the examples of the Madagascar´s ASM mica sector and Latin America and West Africa’s ASM gold sector.
Monday 24 April from 10:00 – 11:30
Description: In this session, panellists will scrutinise potential challenges and opportunities of formalising the ASM mica sector and developing a Mica mining standard, for example using the CRAFT code, to facilitate due diligence of the mica supply chain conforming to OECD Guidance. Good practices from other supply chains, such as gold in other regions, will be shared to identify opportunities and challenges. ASM mica mining, with a legal mining permit, can ensure that each stakeholder of the supply chain economically benefits. The formalisation of ASM mining can also contribute to countering illegal trade in the country’s invaluable resources, the loss of tax revenues and deforestation. Finally, formalisation enables the downstream private sector to fully map their supply chain and mitigate, together with CSOs and/or within multistakeholder initiatives, existing human rights risks including child labour.
Partners: Terre des Hommes Netherlands, Responsible Mica Initiative (RMI), Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and Löning- Human Rights & Responsible Business
Mineral Credit Systems for ASM Gold and Cobalt: Driving Responsible Sourcing
Monday, 24 April, from 12:30 – 14:00
To attend this session, please register here.
Description: As minerals due diligence practices evolve around the world, the influence of local factors in producing countries on due diligence outcomes is increasingly clear. A strong policy environment and support of local stakeholders is key, demonstrating the need for innovative initiatives in producing countries. This session will explore a range of related topics and approaches that foster local incentives to drive responsible sourcing practices in producing countries.
Partners: Fairphone, The Impact Facility, the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), La Gabriela Mine, FCA cooperative.
Civil Society Organizations-organized side session in person
Tuesday 25 April, 14:00 – 15.00
Partners: OECD, Civil society organizations
Gold ASM, Due Diligence and certification: taking stock of achievements and challenges
Tuesday 25 April, 16:00 – 18:00
Description: This session aims to take stock on the achievements and challenges of ASM gold certification in relation to Due Diligence, and at the interface of civil society-industry-academic research. It will start with a presentation of the state of academic knowledge and debates on the issue at hand, followed by commentaries from civil society and industry organisations. A wider discussion with the audience aims to address challenges faced in implementing due diligence in the ASGM sector, and to building solutions such as recognition, collaboration and interoperability between gold industry schemes and upstream initiatives.
Organizer: Lund University, Sweden, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia, Institut des sciences des sociétés (INSS)/ Burkina Faso
EPRM´s evolving role as an accompanying measure to EU regulation
Wednesday 26 April, 14:30 – 16:00
Description: In this session we want to reflect on EPRM´s evolving role as an accompanying measure to EU regulations, and highlight the upcoming call for proposals and its criteria.
EPRM has invested in projects which evolved into systemic and replicable solutions to a more bottom-up and cost-effective due diligence processes, aiming at increasing the engagement with the ASM sector. Yet, even though more and more upstream projects, approaches and tools are appearing, the connection between the efforts on the ground and downstream companies or industry schemes is not fluid enough.
Organizers: The European Partnership for Responsible Minerals (EPRM), in close collaboration with the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and Betterchain/Datastake
The new definition of recycled gold proposed by the Precious Metals Forum
Wednesday 26 April, 16:30 – 18:30
Description: Currently gold is considered to be “recycled” if it has been transformed at least once after its primary refining from freshly mined gold (also called virgin material). The specifics of which type of gold is included or not differs between OECD and current standard setters (LBMA vs RJC vs RMI vs UAE or other standard setters). This means that freshly mined gold can be converted into recycled without ever seeing a consumer. In the view of the working group which developed this new definition, this poses a significant risk of greenwashing.
As the majority of the consumers associate the definition of recycled with responsible, there was a need to come up with a more precise definition of what “recycled” gold is, that fulfills the criteria given by the general perception of recycling.
This session will offer a panel discussion of different actors of the gold sector, who will discuss their perception of the current definitions and of the new proposed definition of recycled gold. We expect this session to be interactive and to allow discussions between panelists and the audience for an open and honest discussion around such an important subject.
Organizer: Precious Metals Forum