Assessing the Legitimacy of Sustainability Standard Programs in the Mining and Minerals Sector

Abstract

This research aims to evaluate the extent to which mining sector sustainability standard programs and their certified entities adopt input legitimacy in their deliberative processes. A framework to assess this was developed based on a literature review, then sustainability standard programs in the mining sector were compared to the framework. Through this study, it was found that many of the analyzed sustainability standard programs have relatively high input legitimacy. However, their certified entities, who, in many cases, make political decisions, are not always required to make those decisions based on democratic processes. Evidence was also found that colonial legacies within the mining industry are insufficiently addressed by sustainability standard programs. In addition, membership of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance is a relatively good predictor of the sustainability standard programs’ achievement against the framework. These findings suggest that sustainability standard programs still risk perpetuating the corporate capture of wealth through greenwash, though have mechanisms in place to democratize environmental global governance to a certain extent.