Integrating the environmental and sustainable development agendas into minerals education

Abstract

Changing public perceptions of the environmental acceptability of mining and minerals processing facilities have changed the industry and mining schools have started to respond by adding environmental content to their minerals curricula. Proactive and preventive environmental strategies, including Cleaner Production and sustainable development, are preferred but mining and minerals processing companies and mining schools generally have limited know-how in those areas. Vice versa, Cleaner Production specialists generally have limited experience in the mining and minerals processing sectors, and should endeavour to employ their expertise and know-how to address the environmental and sustainable development challenges in those sectors. The critical task for mining schools is to educate environmentally literate graduates who are able to recognise potentially adverse impacts of mining and minerals processing on the environment and to contribute from a sound background in geology, mining or metallurgy, to the characterisation, minimisation and management of these environmental impacts. This paper focuses on integrating the environmental and sustainable development agendas in minerals tertiary education. It highlights trends in employers' recruitment criteria and in minerals curricula, and argues in favour of strengthening the environmental component of minerals curricula. The paper provides a framework for integrating the environmental and sustainable development agendas in minerals tertiary curricula. Integration of environmental aspects into core disciplinary courses, by means such as environmental examples, cases and problem-solving tasks, is critical to make environmental literacy programmes successful.