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Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) Performance Standard

ICMM’s Mining Principles are aligned to other responsible mining initiatives through a shared objective of improving environmental, social and governance practices at the operational level. However, there are points of difference between almost all standards and initiatives.

The equivalency benchmarks will be reviewed and updated on a periodic basis. In some cases, an update will be made out of sequence, for example where a standard undergoes a significant revision.

It is the responsibility of benchmark users to ensure they are checking the latest requirements of each standard, in case changes have been made which have not yet been reflected in the benchmarks.

Recent updates to the Mining Principles include:

The purpose of this and other equivalency benchmarks is to:

  • Transparently demonstrate to customers, investors, and other interested parties the extent to which ICMM’s Mining Principles are equivalent to the requirements of other standards and initiatives.

  • Avoid the risk of different interpretations of equivalency by stakeholders, by coming to mutual agreements between ICMM and the owners of other standards and initiatives.

  • Enable all interested parties to have access to a mutually accepted equivalency assessment that would enable efficient joint third-party assessments of implementation progress where appropriate.

  • Facilitate cross-recognition of companies’ validation by other standards and initiatives where the validation process of the other scheme is equally credible and robust as ICMM’s Assurance and Validation Procedure, to avoid duplication of third-party assessment work.

The Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) and the ASI Performance Standard

The Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) is a global not-for-profit standards setting and certification organisation. ASI has six membership classes as part of its multi-stakeholder governance structure. The ASI Performance and Chain of Custody Standards are applicable to all stages of aluminium production and transformation, specifically: bauxite mining, alumina refining, primary aluminium smelting, semi-fabrication (rolling, extrusion, forging and foundry), material conversion, and refining and re-melting of recycled scrap, as well as material stewardship criteria relevant to downstream users of aluminium.

The ASI Performance Standard defines 59 environmental, social and governance principles and criteria, with the aim to address sustainability issues in the aluminium value chain.

Certification against the ASI Performance Standard is a mandatory requirement for two classes of ASI Members as follows:

  • Members in the ‘Production and Transformation’ and ‘Industrial Users’ classes must achieve ASI Certification against applicable requirements of the ASI Performance Standard for at least one Facility or Product/Program.

  • The deadline for Certification for each Member is within two years of joining ASI.

Basis for Assessing Equivalency

The assessment of equivalency has been made based on whether or not a requirement, or a combination of requirements from the ASI Performance Standard covers the same scope of activities and intended outcomes for each of the performance expectations associated with ICMM’s Mining Principles, including the individual company member commitments contained within ICMM’s position statements. This can be the case even if there are minor differences in the detail or language used.

Using These Tables for Joint Implementation or Cross-Recognition

This table can be used to inform what an asset will need to do in order to meet the requirements of both ICMM’s Mining Principles and the ASI Performance Standard and could inform joint validation for both schemes (recognising that in all cases, users should refer to the ICMM Validation Guidance and ASI Performance Standard Guidance.

Alternatively, for ICMM member assets that have undergone third-party validation of the ASI Performance Standard within in the last three years, ICMM will recognise this validation, so assets do not need to repeat the validation for those requirements deemed equivalent in this table, for which the asset has already demonstrated conformance under the ASI Performance Standard.

In this case, the asset should refer to this framework to complete its self-assessment and third-party validation for ICMM’s Mining Principles, which provides the equivalency assessment outcome for each individual ASI Performance Standard. In the equivalency column of ICMM’s self-assessment form the asset can indicate whether the requirements of the ASI Performance Standard 'partially meet' or 'meet' (including 'exceeds') any given performance expectation. The asset must provide evidence that it is in conformance with the relevant requirements of the ASI Performance Standard as listed in this table for that performance expectation. If the performance expectation is 'partially met' by the ASI Performance Standard requirements, the highlighted text and notes in the main benchmark table will say what additional evidence you need to provide to meet the performance expectation.