London, UK – The International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), today announced that they will co-convene an independent review that will establish an international standard on tailings storage facilities.
While the standard would become an ICMM company member commitment, the co-convening partners will encourage others to join in advocating for it to be accepted more broadly.
This initiative is in response to the recent tragedy at Brumadinho and will be informed by evidence and lessons from earlier mine tailings dam failures. The aim is to complete this work by the end of the year.
The PRI will be represented by the Church of England Pensions Board and the Council of Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds, who are both PRI signatories.
As a next step the co-convenors will jointly appoint an independent chair and a multi-stakeholder advisory panel. There will be a further update once the chair has been appointed.