The achievement of sustainable development (SD) in the supply of minerals poses significant challenges for governments and public administrations on all levels, because ensuring a sustainable supply constitutes a “wicked” problem that has no clear set of alternative solutions due to its social, institutional and scientific complexities. This paper explores how this problem is addressed through “governance for SD” principles (horizontal policy integration and participation; long-term vision/short-term action; and reflexivity and learning) in the design and delivery of national mineral policy strategies (NMS) in five EU Member States (Austria, Finland, Greece, Portugal and Sweden). Following a grounded theory approach on data collected through document analysis and complementary qualitative interviews, the author identified several analytical categories for the selected governance for SD’ principles. Although no “one-size-fits-all” recipe for best practice on governance for SD exists in the five NMS, Finland, Portugal and Sweden meet high standards: These NMS display practical examples of governance for SD integration and, thus, lay the foundations for achieving policy outcomes in the sectoral policy strategies of the mineral supply.

Mineral resource policy deals not only with industrial and trade aspects but is nowadays also increasingly concerned with topics such as environmental protection and social development. The tensions associated with strongly divergent opinions among various stakeholder groups cast it as a ‘wicked problem’. The process of redeveloping the ‘Austrian Mineral Resources Strategy’ allows for examination of the different frames and identification of potential frame conflicts in consultation processes at the national level. Using Q-methodology, this paper reveals four frames represented in the Austrian policy design process and unravels conflicts between economy-focused and integrated policy framings. The predominance of the first frame indicates a narrow sectoral approach favouring domestic mineral extraction and economic growth over other means (e.g. international distributional conflicts of benefits and burdens). The article also demonstrates the suitability of Q-methodology as a tool to investigate frames and to improve their understanding in policy design processes.

This chapter explores the societal drivers pushing for more responsible sourcing practices and behaviours and the pathways that were adopted to advocate for these changes. Underlying concepts promoting better governance, fair share of value, and securing and protecting the rights of vulnerable stakeholders resulted in several standards and tools to improve and monitor corporate performance. From sustainability guidelines to certification schemes and eventually legislation, this chapter drills down to the common denominator within these approaches and how they drive more responsible sourcing practices. These approaches included building awareness and increasing transparency around the environmental, social, governance, and economic impacts of operations. Civil society organisations and leading private and public sector actors, through advocacy and collaboration, influenced powerful actors within supply chains to enact change. Advocates provided recommendations for what responsible behaviours and objectives should be undertaken. Others constructed assurance mechanisms to evidence that change has taken place.

Pressure from investor and civil society actors as well as ineffective private sector efforts paved the way for European and national legislations on mandatory due diligence and responsible sourcing. This chapter takes stock of the current policy discourse requiring companies to adhere to due diligence processes and foster responsible sourcing practices in global mineral supply chains. In our analysis on the political economy of current and future policies, we provide an in-depth perspective on the potential of legal requirements in regard to: (1) facilitating responsible sourcing practices across the supply chain; (2) Addressing human rights and environmental aspects; (3) Integrating current discourses into a harmonised legal framework, and (4) creating a level playing field for market actors. We conclude that a dynamically grown policy landscape falls short of an integrated and coordinated policy approach. Against this background, we highlight important lessons learnt and provide recommendations for legal requirements from a governance and policy effectiveness perspective.

While there is a clear call for transformative change towards sustainability in different sectors, an ongoing and strong critique about the inability to initiate this change prevails in the mineral extraction sector. Although there are singular approaches to deciding how the extractive sector can progress towards transformative change, we lack systematic investigations to assess this sector’s performance. Therefore, this paper aims to illustrate the current situation and the potential to generate transformative change in the European extractive sector, using the leverage point approach (LPA) by Donella Meadows. We conducted desk research on European research projects and industry reports, complemented by a survey of extractive sector experts. Overall, our results indicate that the European extractive sector cannot reflect a transformative approach. First, extractive practices do not equally address the LPA spectrum required for initiating a fundamental systemic change. Second, the predominance of industry actors may hamper the effective implementation of extractive practices across the LP spectrum. We conclude that, for a transformative approach, the extractive sector needs to consider fundamental changes in the system’s intent (i.e. objectives, values and worldviews). Actors need to move beyond conceptions of supply provisions, targeting and incorporating the demand side and the need to substantially lower mineral resource consumption at the individual (behaviour change) and societal level (societal change).