Global sand & gravel extraction conflicts with half of UN SDGs

According to a new study led by researchers at #McGill and @uni_copenhagen, the human and environmental costs of sand and gravel extraction on lower and middle-income countries have been largely overlooked.https://t.co/wWYS67KarM

— McGill University (@mcgillu) September 2, 2021

The UN says: 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global partnership.

A new study – Sand, gravel, and UN Sustainable Development Goals: Conflicts, synergies, and pathways forward published recently in One Earth – concludes that global sand and gravel extraction conflicts with half of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: 

Sand and gravel are the most mined materials in the world, with between 32 and 50 billion tonnes extracted globally each year. They are being extracted faster than they can be replaced. But according to a new study led by researchers at McGill University and the University of Copenhagen, the human and environmental costs of this extraction on lower and middle-income countries have been largely overlooked. 

“With this work we’re able to show that in low- and middle-income countries, sand industry is in direct conflict with almost half of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals,” said Mette Bendixen an assistant professor in the department of Geography at McGill University and one of the lead authors of the work, which was published recently in One Earth. “The impact that sand and gravel mining have on the environment, conflicts with goals linked to the natural dynamics of ecosystems. Furthermore, pollution, health-related issues and the informal nature of many mining activities creates societal inequalities negatively affecting small scale miners and their families.”

As usual, Holcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – has its own take on things:

Concrete is playing a vital role in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (@GlobalGoalsUN). That’s why we are accelerating our overall commitment to the SDGs to build a world that works for people and the planet.

➡️ https://t.co/l8vECWFEHL#UNSustainableGoals #UNSDG pic.twitter.com/7E7cpaTxxw

— Holcim (@Holcim) December 11, 2020

‘The ESG investing industry is dangerous’

Tariq Fancy – previously chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock – has written an essay on environmental, social and corporate governance: The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’ — Part 1:

This is the first of a three-part essay that shares how my thinking evolved from evangelizing ‘sustainable investing’ for the world’s largest investment firm to decrying it as a dangerous placebo that harms the public interest. It’s not short. But this topic is critically important: it lies at the heart of how we reform capitalism to address important environmental and social challenges with concrete action. I challenge business leaders who have advocated the ideas I question below to offer a serious rebuttal. 

The essay has been picked up by the FT. 

The ESG investing industry is dangerous https://t.co/ylZZ3Ouogy | opinion

— Financial Times (@FT) August 24, 2021

Tariq Fancy is quoted as saying: 

In my role at BlackRock, I was helping to popularise an idea that the answer to a sustainable future runs through ESG and sustainability and green products, or in other words, that the answer to the market’s failure to serve the long-term public interest is, of course, more market. A bit like the NRA’s traditional answer to mass shootings and related concerns around public safety — the answer is more guns. 

He says senior executives at Blackrock are too smart to believe their own claims about ESG: 

They must know that they’re exaggerating the degree of overlap between purpose and profit . . . These leaders must know that there is no way the set of ideas they’ve proposed are even close to being up to the challenge of solving the runaway long-term problems . . . And right now all of the other stuff they’re saying — the marketing gobbledegook — is actively misleading people. 

Tariq Fancy lays out a number of arguments. Here, quoted from the FT article, are three: 

Argument five. Giving people the dumb idea that shifting their savings from one investment fund to another is going to help materially with, say, climate change creates a dangerous distraction from solutions that fit the scale of the problem, all of which involve changing the rules of capitalism through regulation. 

Argument eight. Corporations, and the whole legal and social apparatus in which they sit, were built around the idea that companies exist to maximise shareholder wealth. That’s what they are designed to do and are required to do. Thinking that fiddling around in the financial markets is going to make companies fit for a radically different purpose — helping with broad social problems driven by economic externalities and tricky collective action problems — is simply bonkers.  

Argument nine. Do you really want financial industry bigwigs making choices about how to solve our biggest social problems? Fancy quotes one of the signatories to the hilariously empty and meaningless 2019 Business Roundtable statement on the purpose of the corporation: “There were times that I felt like Thomas Jefferson.” So said Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, who led the drafting of the BRT’s groundbreaking statement on stakeholder value. It’s easy to understand why he felt that way, given the weight of such lofty words about the future direction of not just business, but indeed society in general. But not enough people have asked a simple question: does it make sense that a CEO should feel like a famous US president? Only one of them is elected by the people.   

The author of the FT article finishes by saying: 

I myself find argument five particularly important. From what I understand, it’s clear we need, for example, a whopping big carbon tax, and soon, or we’re cooked. But we have some of the smartest, most powerful people in the corporate world rattling on about this sustainable investing drivel instead. It scares me.

It should scare us all. Holcim – parent of Aggregate Industries – emits more CO2 than many countries:

✅ We achieved a number-one ESG ranking in the construction materials sector out of more than one-hundred peer companies, according to ESG research and ratings agency Sustainalytics. #FinancialResults #LHN #H12020Results pic.twitter.com/kI1TA0tyA4

— Holcim (@Holcim) July 31, 2020

We are proud to announce that we have concluded our first issuance of ESG notes & that we have also amended all of our committed bilateral facilities.

These transactions are in full alignment w/ our “Business Ambition for 1.5°C” pledge.https://t.co/IXIRaJCftq

#OurOnlyFuture pic.twitter.com/y2UCJERbYI

— Holcim (@Holcim) September 29, 2020

Why is LafargeHolcim against the Responsible Business Initiative?

On 29 November, Switzerland will hold a referendum on the Responsible Business Initiative. If the initiative succeeds, Swiss-based firms – including LafarageHolcim parent of Aggregate Industries:  

will be legally responsible for human rights abuses and environmental violations anywhere in the world, caused by companies under their control. Victims of human rights violations and environmental damage will be able to seek redress in Switzerland.

The corporate lobby is fighting hard against the initiative, saying it will make Swiss companies “guilty until proven innocent” for abuses anywhere in their supply chains, and open the door to “blackmail” by activists.

IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches said: “For too long, multinational corporations have been able to hide their abuses behind a veneer of respectability, using plausible deniability whenever bad behaviour is highlighted. The Responsible Business Initiative is part of a global movement by unions and civil society organizations to hold companies responsible for their behaviour. “Our message is this: we are coming for you. There is nowhere to hide. We will hold you accountable.” 

Polls are showing majority support for the initiative.

Multinationals – including LafargeHolcim – are campaigning hard against the initiative:

The president of the board of Swiss cement manufacturer LafargeHolcim called the initiative’s demands “a gigantic absurdity”.  

Johannes Blankenbach from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre argues:

“Responsible companies… have nothing to fear, and indeed stand to gain from such legislation” 

Florian Wettstein, a business ethics professor at the University of St Gallen says companies’ strong pushback on the initiative says something about their confidence – or lack thereof – in their own due diligence efforts: 

“Companies say they are aligned with the UN Principles, but many know that they aren’t doing what they should when it comes to due diligence”

 

Ich glaubs nicht!!!

"Wenn wir Menschenrechte verletzen, oder wenn wir Menschen krank machen, zahlen wir Entschädigung!"

LafargeHolcim cc @LafargeHolcim #Konzernverantwortung https://t.co/eoPAwDQEA7

— reda el arbi (@redder66) November 17, 2020

Der Zementriese #LafargeHolcim verstösst laut @greenpeace_ch vielerorts gegen Menschenrecht und Umweltschutz. Wie könnte man solche Firmen künftig nach einem #KVI-Ja zur Rechenschaft ziehen?https://t.co/2RozAmMDfx @_tinaberg #Konzernverantwortung #Konzernverantwortungsinitiative

— Beobachter (@BeobachterRat) November 5, 2020

„Companies’ strong pushback says something about their confidence – or lack thereof – in their own due diligence.“

⁦@bhrwettstein⁩ hits the sore point of the aggressive counter campaign, lead by ⁦@economiesuisse⁩ and ⁦@furrerhugi⁩. #kvi https://t.co/A4APf87j6z

— Oliver Classen (@Oliver_Classen) November 15, 2020

‘Landmark judgement gives hope to victims of corporate crime everywhere’

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that villagers in Zambia can sue UK-based mining giant Vedanta in a British court – over the alleged pollution of their water sources with toxic material from 2005 onwards:

Martyn Day, senior partner at law firm Leigh Day, which is representing the Zambian villagers, said: "I hope this judgment will send a strong message to other large multinationals that their CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility] policies should not just be seen as a polish for their reputation but as important commitments that they must put into action."

Landmark judgement just issued from @UKSupremeCourt gives hope to victims of corporate crime everywhere. #Zambia victims pave the way for #UK companies to face justice for #humanrights and #environmental harm. Judgement is here: https://t.co/a3jrbAiMS4 pic.twitter.com/MgSpODsDxy

— Anneke VanWoudenberg (@woudena) April 10, 2019

AI’s idea of Corporate Social Responsibility

According to The Institute of Quarrying:

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to how a company may think about its relationship with the community, the environment and other causes beyond its own profitability and growth…

The sorts of CSR issues that (particularly large) companies seek to address will include things like: Engaging with stakeholders in the community…

We’ve posted about these sorts of things before: Community engagement is not about being nice; it’s the fourth pillar of CSR and Doesn't AI do hearts and minds any more?

Clearly, Aggregate Industries still has some hang-ups with CSR:

@AggregateUK How does blocking a community’s social media account assist in ‘working in partnership with communities to better understand the long term #economic, #environmental and social implications of our activities’? @beisgovuk pic.twitter.com/lzFqcVr0Av

— Straitgate Action Gp (@straitgateactgp) November 28, 2018

Miscellaneous

1. "We did not give up and now this battle has been won.”

Plans for an Aggregate Industries' concrete plant 'directly opposite' The O2 in London have finally been rejected after a three year campaign.

Part of AI's undoing, according to The Secretary of State, was:

There is little evidence that thought has gone into alternative layouts and arrangements of structures to take account of the site’s environmental constraints or wider context. Indeed, there is little identification of these, or opportunities, unlike the analysis carried out for the Objectors... [12.36]

A warning that environmental constraints for any application must be properly addressed, even by AI.

2. Gravel switch: crushed rock is the preferred tonnage as sourcing changes

In an article in Mineral Planning, on the effects of the NPPF, the director of planning for the Mineral Products Association admits:

Operators have been eking out reserves they already have. The last thing they have wanted is to go anywhere near a planning authority... [as a result] MPA survey figures suggest both producers and consumers have adapted by switching from sand and gravel to crushed rock.

On the subject of planning, he bemoans that:

Concern over vulnerability to legal challenge is leading to an ever more precautionary approach by regulators. This results in delay and unnecessary costs in providing superfluous information to support plan allocations and planning applications.

Superfluous information? Is that really the industry's thinking when responding to its impact on people, groundwater, ecology, history, endangered species, dust, noise, traffic, etc?

3. Silica Particles from Frac Sand Mining Put Tens of Thousands at Risk

An article by Environmental Working Group claims that thousands in the US are exposed to potential health risks from silica sand mining:

Research has shown that these particles can degrade air quality as far as 750 meters away, leading to a variety of serious health problems, particularly in children and other vulnerable populations.

Dust, and its effects upon health, is a continuing concern around quarry sites in the UK; we have written a number of times in the past about Respirable Crystalline Silica.

4. Business and society: defining the 'social licence'

An article by John Morrison in The Guardian argues that:

Social licence can never be self-awarded, it requires that an activity enjoys sufficient trust and legitimacy, and has the consent of those affected. Business cannot determine how much prevention or mitigation it should engage in to meet environmental or social risk – stakeholders and rights-holders have to be involved for thresholds of due diligence to be legitimate (sometimes even if these are clearly determined in law).

5. The resource curse of corporate social responsibility

A blog on the impacts of mining across the world, by a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol, tackles the subject of corporate social responsibility or CSR:

Often, CSR in the mining industry is little more than a public relations exercise, with no tangible reality to support its elaborate rhetoric.

6. Prehistoric boundary

For anybody interested in learning about Prehistoric Boundaries - like the one thought to run through Straitgate Farm - this English Heritage document explains more.

Community engagement is not about being nice; it’s the fourth pillar of CSR

Reads the title of an interesting article from Guardian Sustainable Business. CSR? Corporate social responsibility. The article makes the point that:

...community engagement is a way to understand, engage in and act upon critical workplace, marketplace and environmental issues. It is not additional; it is central. It is not about being nice; it is about addressing business objectives. And it is definitely not about ‘giving back’; it is about companies being part of, not apart from, society.

We touched on the subject a couple of weeks ago in Doesn't AI do hearts and minds any more? and gave an example of just such a company trying to connect with the local community - trying to be part of society - in an open day at its cement plant in Derbyshire. How successful was that open day? More than 2000 people attended, which indicates that local people do want to engage with what's going on in their community. The article finishes by saying:

If sustainability is about benefiting all stakeholders in the long-term, then community engagement can play a central role, helping companies and their people to understand and embrace issues, ensuring a positive impact on all stakeholders.

It's all common sense really; which makes it all the more surprising that community engagement is so low down on the list of priorities for certain quarry companies - companies that cause so much negative impact on local people and the surrounding environment.

.@HopeConstMats welcomes more than 2000 people to #cement plant open day http://t.co/Sjjt5tqEH8 pic.twitter.com/i8DjpHjyGF
— World Cement (@World_Cement) September 9, 2014