Green and climate-smart mining: A framework to analyze open-pit mines for cleaner mineral production

Abstract

Green and climate-smart mining (GCSM) can transform the traditional mining system into a more sustainable pattern by conserving the environment, reducing the ecological footprint, and promoting cleaner mineral production. Being a burgeoning concept, GCSM needs to be clearly defined and adequately understood to make it happen on a strategic scale. This study is an effort to propose an indicator framework for analyzing and prioritizing the identified indicators in order to render technical assistance for the implementation of GCSM. The proposed framework contains twenty-five sub-indicators categorized into six leading indicators (environmental protection, pollution control, waste management, energy and resource consumption, technology enablement and implementation, and strategic and managerial efficiency). The case of Chinese open-pit mines is presented to analyze the framework from two main aspects: the current situation of GCSM indicators (reality) and their significance in the development of GCSM (desirability). An integrated methodological approach involving the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and grey clustering is applied, which first weighs each indicator and then further analyzes the level of greenness and climate-smartness (GCS) for each indicator. The findings reveal that all leading indicators fall into the “low” and “high” GCS levels in terms of reality and desirability, respectively. It indicates a negative tendency of GCSM performance and implies that if the efficiency of these indicators is improved, the GCSM performance in the future can be optimistic. This study enriches the existing literature, sets the stage for further research, and provides exploratory insights for an in-depth understanding of GCSM.