Sustainable mining practices: Willingness to adopt mercury-free gold mining in Ghana

Abstract

The use of mercury in gold mining has negative impacts on the ecosystem and has raised concerns. Ghana and many nations are at the forefront of adopting mercury-free gold mining technologies and practices. However, recent studies on mercury-free gold mining lack the psychological aspect of it. In view of that, this study combines the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory and theory of planned behavior (TPB) with Government intervention to investigate Artisanal and Small-scale miners' (ASM) willingness to adopt (WTA) mercury-free gold mining in Ghana. Utilizing partially least square structural equation modeling, 423 data were collected across Ghana for the study. The results show that the integrated model designed is better than the original TPB and VBN models with 36%, 24.7%, 33.3% variance explained respectively. Attitude (16.2%), subjective norms (9.4%), and perceived behavioral control (19.7%) all have a positive influence on ASM's WTA. Personal norms have a positive (12.9%) impact on WTA. Awareness of consequences influences ascription of responsibilities positively and they both influence personal norms positively. Interventions from the government had the strongest positive (30.9%) impact on WTA. Mediation roles of personal norms and attitude were also found between the variables and WTA. These findings provide new evidence and insights in the context of gold mining as policy suggestions have been made for policymakers to curb the menace.