Integrated environmental management and planning for closure: The challenges

Abstract

Abstract This article provides a framework for the collection of papers on integrated environmental management through planning for closure from the outset. It provides an overview of the environmental impacts of mining and underlines the imperative of improved environmental management and planning. It argues that pollution prevention, through planning for closure, from the outset can lead to cost effective strategies for operationalising sustainable minerals development. This seems to be most true for greenfield sites since, generally, the earlier closure planning and pollution prevention is built into a project, the more cost‐effective and environmentally benign closure will be. Furthermore, for greenfield sites, pollution prevention techniques can be employed from the outset, at the stages of exploration and mine development, and then monitored and improved through the operation stage to closure. The article then discusses how global changes in the industry, following the liberalisation of investment r...