The significant increase in metal mining and the inevitability of the continuation of this trend suggests that environmental pressures, as well as related impacts, have become an issue of global relevance. Yet the scale of the impact remains, to a large extent, unknown. This paper examines the mining sector’s demands on CO₂ emissions, water use, as well as demands on land use focusing on four principal metals: iron, aluminium (i.e., bauxite ore), copper, and gold. These materials represent a large proportion of all metallic materials mined in terms of crude tonnage and economic value. This paper examines how the main providers of mining data, the United Nations, government sources of some main metal producing and consuming countries, the scientific literature, and company reports report environmental pressures in these three areas. The authors conclude that, in the global context, the pressure brought about by metal mining is relatively low. The data on this subject are still very limited and there are significant gaps in consistency on criteria such as boundary descriptions, input parameter definitions, and allocation method descriptions as well as a lack of commodity and/or site specific reporting of environmental data at a company level.

Events that change the global economy rapidly, without warning, in principle strongly affect mining, which is one of the pillars of global development. After the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mining pillar seems to be relatively stable. In this study, thanks to the meeting of an international team, it was possible to collect and compare a set of data on the impact on mining. In contrast to the general assessments of the stability of the mining sector, the authors decided to assess the impact of Covid-19 at individual stages of the mining project life cycle. In this way, it was possible to identify the most impacted fragments of the mining pillar. It was assessed that the highest influence of Covid-19 is observed in projects implementing feasibility studies and in projects for the development of new mines. The same is true of extracting residual resources in mines prior to the closure decision. The medium impact was confirmed at the exploration and discovery stage. The authors conclude that the impact on the current mining production is smaller and the effects in this case are short term, which is mainly due to a continued strong demand for minerals in China, which has balanced the weaker demand in other parts of the world. On the other hand, stopping the exploration and development of new mines will have a long-term impact, including an increased possibility of disruption of the future security of supplies of raw materials.

This study examines the four cases of World Heritage protected cultural landscapes in Europe that are characterized by mining in order to identify the role mining plays today in such cultural landscapes, the legal requirements for their protection, and also the exploration and exploitation in these areas and the differences that exist between the five European countries concerned. Using a qualitative comparative case study approach, the authors find that active mining is taking place in the Austrian case, and exploration is happening adjacent to the German/Czech protected cultural landscape. The legal protection of the cases is mainly based on heritage and monument protection legislation as well as environment protection legislation including the Natura 2000 network. Differences exist, as other than in Germany, exploration and mining could be allowed in protected areas, which is also contrary to the position of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the International Council on Mining and Metals.

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.

Environmental pollution, predatory use of resources, forced labour or non-renewability – these are just some areas for which mining is very often criticised when it comes to sustainability. This chapter looks at the sustainability issues related to mining, including the non-renewability of mineral raw materials, and puts key issues such as CO₂ emissions and land and water use into a global perspective. A roadmap, based on the European Union research project SUMEX, of the transformation needed in the industry is described in order for its processes to become sustainable – based on a “strong” sustainability view and in order to stay within planetary boundaries. Whilst the non-renewability of mineral raw materials features prominently in sustainability discussions, this process transformation should be considered the priority for now. Educators and especially their students have a strong role to play in this transformation by holding relevant players accountable and by driving the changes required. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->