GLOBAL INDUSTRY STANDARD ON TAILINGS MANAGEMENT AND BENEFITS
What is Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management all about?
The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management strives to achieve the ultimate goal of zero harm to people and the environment with zero tolerance for human fatality. It requires Operators to take responsibility and prioritise the safety of tailings facilities, through all phases of a facility’s lifecycle, including closure and post-closure. It also requires the disclosure of relevant information to support public accountability. The Standard is structured around six Topic Areas encompassing 15 Principles and includes 77 individual Requirements. The Standard applies to tailings facilities, except those deemed to be in a state of safe closure.
The Standard provides a framework for safe tailings facility management while affording Operators flexibility as to how best to achieve this goal. Conformance with the Standard does not displace the requirements of any specific national, state or local governmental statutes, laws, regulations, ordinances, or other government directives. Operators who have adopted the standard are expected to conform with the Requirements of the Standard not in conflict with other provisions of law.
For any standard to be effective, conformance must periodically be assessed. To enable companies who have committed to implementing the Standard to confidently assess conformance, ICMM has developed Conformance Protocols for the Standard.
The criteria in the Conformance Protocols are derived from and faithfully reflect the language of the Standard, to support implementation and enable conformance against all applicable Requirements to be assessed. The intention is that they can be used by Operators of tailings facilities to conduct self-assessments of progress with implementing the Standard. In addition, they can be used to enable third-party auditors to independently confirm whether a tailings facility is in conformance with requirements of the Standard at the asset level.
ICMM members committed that all facilities with ‘Extreme’ or ‘Very high’ potential consequences will be in conformance with the Standard by August 2023, and all other facilities by August 2025. For ICMM members the ability to reliably assess conformance therefore has some urgency.
It was further agreed that for ICMM members the intervals between independent audits of tailings facilities should be a maximum of three years for ‘Extreme’ or ‘Very High’ consequence facilities and five years for all others. Once a tailings facility is deemed to be in a state of safe closure it no longer needs to be subject to self-assessments or third-party audits.
Under the ICMM Assurance and Validation Procedure, member companies would also be required to disclose whether a facility is in conformance with the Standard. They should clearly indicate whether the determination of conformance was based on a self-assessment or a third-party audit, and the date on which the self-assessment or audit was completed. Self-assessments should be signed-off by an Accountable Executive, whereas third-party audits should be signed-off by the lead auditor.
What are the benefits of implementing Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management?
Important benefits of implementing Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management:
Demonstrating compliance against global best practice requirements for tailings management with the goal of achieving zero harm to people and the environment,
Effective governance of tailings management including accountability for decisions, providing a management structure with checks and balances for decision-making, providing the means to effectively manage tailings on a day-to-day basis, and providing input to mechanisms to respond effectively if an emergency occurs,
Establishing good engineering practices, including a risk informed approach throughout the lifecycle, needed to improve the safety of tailings facilities,
Setting criteria for operators to take responsibility and prioritise the safety of tailings facilities through all phases of a facility’s lifecycle up to safe closure,
Instituting a Tailings Management System to integrate the people, resources, processes and practices related to tailings management to help Operators achieve their performance objectives, manage risk and ensure safe, responsible management of tailings,
Supporting integration of tailings management requirements into existing assurance and validation processes,
Requiring disclosure of relevant information concerning operator accountability to relevant interested and affected parties,
Providing criteria for self and independent third-party assessments,
Supporting compliance with national, state or local governmental statutes, laws, regulations, ordinances, or other government directives regarding tailings management,
Providing a best practice framework for operators planning to improve the overall management of tailings facilities,
Setting requirements for preparing, maintaining and updating documentation of information on all aspects of tailings management critical to providing a basis for current and future decisions, managing change, and for fully understanding and effectively managing risks.
What services do we offer?
Our Tailings services include:
Implementation or maintenance of customer Tailings Management Systems (section 2.6.7 of ICMM’s Tailings Management Good Practice guideline),
Performing of internal audits to evaluate and report on the degree of conformance in meeting stipulated tailings facility criteria (section 2.6.8 of ICMM’s Tailings Management Good Practice guideline). For example, performing an internal third-party assessment to review implementation progress of ICMM’s Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management by auditing against their Conformance Protocols,
Conducting supplier audits on contractor tailings Operators to verify their adherence to contracted agreements or prescribed standards for example, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 or GISTM,
Developing training material or train employees to meet the requirements of ICMM’s Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management.
