The Arlit Mines: Gathering and structuring information (1) Candidate indicators

 

Defining candidate indicators

 
The objective of this task was to define a first set of indicators that fit with the issues defined in the previous step but also that address broader requirements for mining sites sustainability assessment (for example, energy consumption, though a major issue for mining, was not mentioned by the stakeholders in our interviews).
 
The question of the relevance of these indicators would then be tested through having them submitted to stakeholders‘ judgment.  For this reason we speak of “candidate” indicators, which means indicators that are considered provisionally as pertinent, that are “up for consideration” as it were.
 
Three main sources of “candidate” indicators were available:
  • Stakeholder‘ proposals;
  • Indicators used by the Nigerian companies for their CSR reporting;
  • Indicators specific to the mining sector.

Stakeholder proposals

 
During the first phase of interviews, about fifteen indicators were proposed on various issues (health impact, company contributions to local communities, etc.).
For many of them, however, the concept of ―measure was difficult to understand.
The proposals obtained in this way are not always completely satisfying from a ―scientific standpoint, but they express real expectations from stakeholders.
Therefore it was decided to keep them in situations where no real equivalent could be found in the other two types of indicator sources. 
 
Each focus group was asked to agree on a maximum of five indicators, deemed to be the most pertinent for each of the nine issue categories.
They were free, however, to formulate new indicator proposals if this was felt to be necessary.
This ceiling of five indicators, which some participants found frustrating, had the double objective of reducing the total number of indicators to obtain a workable data set (more or less homogeneously distributed amongst the nine categories) and of fostering dialogue between participants.    

Areva’s CSR reporting 

Forty-eight indicators from Areva‘s CSR reporting were found to be suitable for both of Niger mining companies.
However, these indicators cover only a limited range of domains: environmental aspects (impact, consumption, management) and internal social issues (H&S, equity and formation).
No indicator was proposed for measuring community or economic aspects.  All the ”candidate” indicators from this source were retained, for several reasons.  

Mining sector indicators 

As mentioned earlier, there are now a great number of international studies that have developed sustainable development indicators for the mineral sector.
From these, more than a thousand indicators were obtained and compiled in a database.  Several selection operations were necessary to get down to a “reasonable” number of indicators!  Indicators whose scale was not suitable and those that were not relevant to the study were removed, as well as those that did not meet quality criteria, because they were too imprecise for example.
In sum, a total of 127 indicators was obtained after reconciling all three sources; these indicators are more or less equally distributed across all nine issue categories (Table 2).  
 

Issue category

Nb. of indicators

Economic and financial performances

9

Redistribution of benefits

6

Local community

13

Employees health and safety

18

Employment and equity

13

Wages and working conditions

12

Environmental management

14

Resources and products management

19

Environmental impacts

16

 

Table 2: Number of indicators by issue category