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The Copper Mark

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 agreed 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 Copper Mark

The Copper Mark is an assurance framework to demonstrate the copper industry’s responsible production practices and industry contribution to the United Nations SDGs. The Copper Mark Criteria for responsible production are the requirements defined in the Risk Readiness Assessment, including the criteria guide which provides a description of the performance determination and means of verification for each issue area.

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 RRA Norms 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.

Guidance documents, such as the Copper Mark Criteria Guide were consulted and referenced, where relevant, to clarify definitions and/or the types of evidence required to demonstrate conformance with the expectations in the RRA Norms but were not considered to be elaborating on or establishing additional normative requirements beyond the language contained in the RRA Norms.

Using These Tables for Joint Implementation or Cross-Recognition

For ICMM member assets which have undergone third party validation through the Copper Mark 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 using the Copper Mark’s assessment process.

The Copper Mark equally recognises third party validations against the ICMM’s Mining Principles in its assurance process. For details on the evidence required, assets are required to consult the joint RRA-Copper Mark Equivalency Matrix and contact the Copper Mark.