Abstract
The mining sector is considered one of those that generate strong environmental, social and economic impacts. As a result, mining companies aware of their activities’ impacts have chosen to plan and execute strategies to have long-term sustainable positive results, innovating and investing in technology to improve their critical processes and activities. The incorporation of the sustainability concept in the mining industry could be considered as the development of its activities efficiently and effectively, optimizing resources, creating wealth for the whole society by applying strategies to mitigate environmental and social impacts, enhancing the environment where their mining projects operate. This research identifies in the literature the key elements that form the sustainable operations of a mining company through techniques of systematic literature review. This paper identifies and examines the current dominant practices in the mining industry in Latin America. To achieve this objective, a multidimensional framework is applied to analyze and classify the implementation of these activities in three different angles: the types of corporate sustainability activities, the issues addressed, and the step of the value chain concerned. The research adopts a content analysis of sustainability reports from the main mining companies in Latin America. The results show that the predominant practices are found in corporate sustainability management (type), have a social approach (issue) and are directly related to the production process (value chain step). Finally, it describes sustainability-based projects that these companies are developing to build a sustainable operations strategic vision.
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Mallqui, A., de Lima, E.P., Bortoluzzi, S.C. (2021). Mining Sustainability Practices in Latin America. In: Leal Filho, W., Tortato, U., Frankenberger, F. (eds) Integrating Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59975-1_14
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