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The aspiration is for the mining industry to transform the traditional business model into one where mining companies become true development partners with communities and other stakeholders.Co-chaired by Anglo American Chief Executive Mark Cutifani and KIN Senior Fellow Peter Bryant, the KIN Catalyst for the Mining Company of the Future has helped to change the direction of the industry.
What began as a conversation at KIN Global in 2011 led to a marathon meeting nearly a year later at Fundação Dom Cabral in Brazil (Northwestern partners with FDC, offering a post-MBA program). For five days, fifty representatives from mining companies, suppliers, NGOs (Oxfam, UN—Habitat), investors, researchers, government and indigenous groups sat down together to talk about the serious and seemingly intractable issues around mining. The industry was in trouble. Although vital to the global economy, a chronic lack of investment in innovation had reduced productivity, leading to increased costs and subpar returns on capital. At the same time, legacy environmental, health and safety issues had eroded mining's social license to operate in many communities. To turn things around would require changing the paradigm: to recast the mining business model as a development partnership, working with stakeholders rather than at odds with them to pursue shared goals of prosperity. Following the meeting in Brazil, a smaller working group representing the same range of diversity worked for 18 months to create the Development Partner Framework, which was presented at the Ford Foundation in December 2014. The Framework details best practices for collaboration between the industry and stakeholders and is anchored by three pillars:
The Brazil meeting also initiated a groundbreaking dialogue with the Vatican. The Catholic church is deeply involved in mining communities around the world, but there had never been a direct conversation with the senior leaders of the mining industry. Initial conversations developed into a series of Days of Reflection held at the Vatican. That, in turn, led to similar dialogues with leaders of the Church of England, the Methodist Church and other faith-based organizations, helping to bridge the divide between industry and other stakeholders. These kinds of dialogues are now happening all over the world independent of the KIN Catalyst. The KIN Catalyst process is a journey designed to embrace such serendipitous developments. Indigenous peoples, including the First Nations of Canada, have found value in the Framework, using the template to start dialogues of their own. Our efforts have been recognized with a silver medal from the prestigious Edison Awards. We look forward to the work started by the KIN Catalyst for the Mining Company of the Future being more broadly adopted over the next few years, becoming the industry standard. Working Team Member Organizations
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