Yes, bully for me. But it gives me a pretty good basis for saying, in respect of these statements for instance:
... and prior ones of same ilk, that they appear to be just ex-cathedra generalisations that we frequently see come out of the prism of academia, some UN agency or an NGO, and not from practical experience. (Like some of the comments made in this thread about private schools - out of date, stereotyping). Would I be close to the mark? Does one practice, or just observe and report?
NO mine and NO company I have worked for (and I have dealt from the Board room to the crib room) has ever paid lip service to the environmental or safety issues part of the mine. ALL have invested in their local communities, way above what they might be required to do to run their business. Mining is a high risk, long term investment for companies and shareholders. Besides the genuine concerns held by workers on the ground, it just doesn't make economic sense for the mainstream company to cut corners or 'do the minimum'. (That said, I will not defend CSG in Australia).
Yes, I will rise to baiting of the mining industry, with pleasure; but I wouldn't mind knowing the experience behind statements like those referred above , please.
tl;dr - my limited experiences explained, may not stack up to a more extensive experience assessment. Conceded point on stereotyping private schools.
I don't mind having a good discussion either, and I don't mind a dissenting view for that matter. You have experience on your side; I don't have the same amount in comparison, be it different experience as well. No need to categorically discredit academia, NGOs and the UN - they get it right sometimes, and sometimes they aren't a bad voice to have, whether in support or against. Having interacted with NGOs, if you think I'm trying to just categorically put down an industry and discard them to the embers, (a) you're off the mark (perhaps the unfortunate by-product of having only a text argument to go by), and (b) this is no where near as "bad" as how some NGOs tend to argue a point rather farcically or unreasonably.
My experience? Mainly from a research perspective, so yes, observe and report, not so much practice myself. A fair amount of on the ground, face-to-face experience compared to most other "stereotyped" researchers; including shadowing HSE officers at various sites (base metals, precious metals, Australian and overseas); interviews with operational personnel, management and community representatives on various operational and planning aspects, was also lucky enough to talk to or interview some industrial network boards, parliamentary ministers and two mining company CEOs; sat in and recorded details of interactions at operational and management meetings; taken operational data and environmental monitoring data for external analysis with industry experts; taken some independent sampling (operational and environmental) for analysis; analysed way too many mining company sustainability reports. Certainly not 35 years - I didn't start examining sites when I was still in my mother's womb!
Wish I had some of the sites you mention for my PhD case studies! Sounds like they would have been more engaged than the sites I had, even though I eventually managed to get quite a satisfactory interaction with the sites I had. Getting access to data and people was a huge issue, even with the contacts that I had at my disposal.
Maybe we have different standards (or hold companies to different standards) as what is "lip service" and what is going beyond that.
I was at an operation where the role of HSE (at least at the time, could have changed) was lip service to E; HS was just fine. Why did I observe this? When I was talking to the HSE officer, I went over a range of environmental issues for that operation, raised variously by community and in the issue register for the operation at the time. They maintained that the operation was within limits and any apparent reports otherwise were not true. I asked them if they had any testing or monitoring to back those claims up. Some of the testing was there; some of it was not; some of the testing didn't actually address the issue or wasn't complete. When I had a look at the EIS submission for that operation, some of the issues discussed were not mentioned in any risk assessments. So some of those issues were 'new' (i.e. not in the original 'plan'). From a retrospective assessment, the HSE officer and mine manager, at a minimum, agreed that some of the current issues could have and should have been reasonably foreseeable. A conclusion - which was agreed between us and the site - was that there was basically too much minimising of and management of acute impacts, and not really enough attention on identifying the sources of risks. Basically, "containing the mess" rather than "don't make a mess". As a result of that interaction and further discussions with the mine manager, I was told about a month later an external company had been procured to finally track the issues which were not being looked at. The process had been modified to further reduce the risk of some of those environmental issues resurfacing, with the convenient by-product that the recovery actually improved. New tracking and measurement processes had been installed at the operation. A comprehensive water and energy audit was commissioned and used as the basis of resource planning (e.g. climatic variations).
That's probably the best example I have where the HSE (E part) role was done rather passively; changed considerably after we had a chat with them. I've seen other HSEs which, after observing them at meetings and even talking to them, were mainly there to ensure the operation "wasn't making a mess", and that was mostly it. Nearly all of them conceded for most part that their role was rather passive and the environmental commitment was mostly limited to containing impacts, simply because the technical demands of the operation were much more important and were prioritised for effort and funding. When I asked many of them what they would do differently given the funding and time, some came up with some interesting ideas. On one site, the technical researchers who were with us came up with a great way to sell both the environmental initiative and changes to the process, which improved the production indicators and considerably reduced risks, and the company agreed.
Those are the "not so good" examples. That doesn't mean they are all like that. One tailings storage operation I was working with had very good environmental processes. Their reporting structure was efficient and active. Environmental impact risks were managed very well and monitoring was excellent. There was very good interaction between environmental and technical operation teams (for both current operations and expansions). There were environmental initiatives were enacted to not only reduce environmental damage risks, but actually improve the environment (ecosystems, downstream water courses, long term rehabilitation planning). The personnel - management and operational - actually took pride in taking steps beyond compliance and aiming for a higher goal. As a researcher, you need to assume a degree of scepticism at times, but this operation was very hard to find much fault with the processes, much less with the operational culture, the latter of which I believe is critical.
I can only say that I have limited experience so examples like the last one were rarer than ones more like the first example, though the first one is the "worst" that I was at. Maybe for you, you've seen the opposite, or, as it would seem, they are all good. Fair enough. For the mining companies of repute, I don't think they will have serious problems with safety or safety culture. The processes for safety in the mining industry are very mature these days and well established. In fact, I'd argue that mining is one of the industries who are leading the others on proactive approaches to safety, and the corporate and operational culture to go with it.
it just doesn't make economic sense for the mainstream company to cut corners or 'do the minimum'.
Agree with that wholeheartedly. This is especially true for companies with unfortunate legacies in a given environment.
I'm not anti-mining. And I know people who are (they can be real tough nuts, and just for completeness, not all of them are fruit loops, hippies, socialists or completely uneducated). Working with communities can be exhausting; perceptions can talk louder than the measured data, and that's really tough to deal with. I've said many times that no matter what happens, we'll be relying on mining for many generations to come. Trying to be sustainable in mining is not selling snake oil; it's trying to do something which we "need" to do, much better; if it makes operations work better from a technical perspective, that's more than a double win.
As for the stereotype on private schools, I'll concede that one. I heard that one through off-hand discussions with family friends, plus I thought I've read before in some job ads for some private schools that there were requirements (or "an advantage" bullet points) related to faith, or at least when the ad was explaining the values of the school (including faith), it somehow tied the teachers into those values, which means they could have been viably brought up during an interview. Given I have no hard evidence of this, I can't argue it further but glad to hear that at least if I apply to a private school I don't have to worry too much about my faith!