Towards Sustainable Mining: The Corporate Role in the Construction of Global Standards

Drawing upon research on the initiatives of Canadian mining companies, this paper examines private efforts in the mining sector to promote acceptable standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although much has been written on CSR in the business and organization fields, there has been little scholarly treatment of the topic from a social sciences perspective. A common assumption is that companies are merely reacting to societal pressures from transnational non-governmental organizations, which are portrayed as promoting global norms that induces change in behaviour at the micro level. This paper challenges that assumption, by weighing the impact of emerging global norms of CSR against influences internal to the companies themselves, and domestic influences operating in Canada. While emerging global CSR norms are important influences on companies’ decisions to adopt policies on CSR, their role is more complex than is often assumed, as mining companies have been proactive in their efforts to shape those norms. The near universal embrace of the concept of sustainable development by mining companies illustrates both the influence of global norms on companies, and their efforts to promote sustainable mining practices domestically (in Canada) and globally. Introduction From the mid-1990s, multinational mining companies began to adopt sustainable development policies to reflect their commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR). By the early 2000s, virtually all large mining companies were producing annual sustainable development reports. This study explores the influences that led two Canadian mining companies, Noranda and Placer Dome, to adopt CSR policies, and asks how important emerging global CSR norms were in influencing those policies. The Acknowledgments: The author gratefully acknowledges the support, in the form of a standard research grant, of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Hevina S. Dashwood, Department of Political Science, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario L2S 3A1; [email protected] 1 Since this study was undertaken, Noranda merged with Falconbridge in 2005, and Falconbridge was taken over by Swiss-based Xstrata in August 2006. Placer Dome was taken over by Canadian-based Barrick Gold in February 2006.