Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process based environmental, social and governance risks assessment for the future phosphorite mining in Estonia

Abstract

Although Estonia has significant phosphate rock reserves within the EU, their extraction and processing in Estonia has been a sensitive issue in the past. The current study focuses on identifying and understanding the most critical Environmental Social Governance (ESG) risks for any potential phosphorite mining and processing by compiling and analysing the opinions of Estonian mining experts and identifying similarities and differences between the perceptions of mining experts and wider society groups. The results indicate that governance risks are more critical and social ones are less significant, leaving environmental risks in the middle. A comparison with other stakeholders’ opinions from the earlier studies reveals that governance risks are most important for mining experts, while environmental risks are more critical for other stakeholders.A deeper insight also shows that mining experts do not consider the risk of negative impacts on the living environment of the local community and that their engagement is not particularly important for the company`s activities. However, other stakeholders have valued it the most. Mining experts have considered profitability as the most critical risk, while this is less the case for other stakeholders. As a result, the findings of the ESG risk analysis conducted can be outlined as follows: the importance of risks is multi-layered and differs among stakeholders; if phosphorite is planned to be extracted in Estonia, significant ESG risks need to be mitigated for different stakeholders at different stages of development; a framework should be developed for policymakers to use for sustainable phosphorite extraction.