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Blog | Tuesday August 26, 2025

Mining and the Just Transition: Putting People at the Center of the Energy Transition

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The mining industry plays a dual role in climate change: while the industry contributes 4 to 7 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it is also an essential enabler of the clean energy transition, supplying the minerals needed for renewable energy technologies and low-carbon infrastructure. These transition minerals will play a pivotal role in supporting the global transition to a low-carbon economy because renewable energy technologies (e.g., solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, etc.), rely on copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements. While the recycling of transition minerals should be prioritized wherever possible, it will be insufficient to meet skyrocketing demand in the short to medium term given limited supply of recyclable materials, making the development of new and expanded mines necessary. However, any new or expanded mines must be developed only under the strictest ecological safeguards and with full respect for human rights, to avoid repeating the environmental destruction, social conflict, and rights violations that have too often accompanied mining in the past. 

Among governments, civil society, Indigenous leaders, multilateral institutions like the ILO, as well as industry coalitions such as the ICMM, there is a growing consensus that the mining industry must undergo a just transition to address its dual role as both a driver of climate harm and an enabler of climate solutions. At its core, a just transition in the mining industry means that the benefits and burdens of the global energy shift are shared fairly, and that mining companies proactively uphold human rights and justice as they adapt to a decarbonizing economy and expand operations to meet growing demand. A just transition requires mining operations to become far cleaner and safer than in the past, treating environmental protection and respect for human rights as non-negotiable priorities. 

For mining companies, action on just transition falls into three areas: in their own operations, in their supply chains, and in the communities in which they operate. Their just transition actions should be built upon an unwavering goal of reaching net zero by 2050 and commitment to respecting human rights. Meeting these goals would involve conducting ongoing environmental and human rights due diligence, upholding the highest standards, and considering, mitigating, and remedying the impacts to people in their decarbonization efforts and beyond.  

BSR recommends that responsible mining companies focus on: 

• Climate Action with a Human Lens: Integrate social impacts into climate mitigation and adaptation efforts to ensure people, not just emissions and impacts to infastructure, are considered in transition plans and climate action. Mitigate harms to people, and where harms do occur, provide remedy. Consider those actions caused and contributed to by the company, as well as those linked to the company through business relationships. 
• Environmental Responsibility: Minimize impacts on nature and the environment, and safeguard against worker and community harm through responsible land, water, waste, and pollution management. Limit impacts to biodiversity, land disturbance, water use, waste, and pollution. 
• Respect for Workers and Just Labor Practices: Uphold labor and human rights, including fair wages, safe working conditions, freedom of association, and collective bargaining. Manage mine closures, automation, and changes to the workforce and production through transparent social dialogue (e.g., negotiation and consultation between workers, employers, and sometimes governments), reskilling, compensation, and worker-inclusive transition planning to ensure no one is left behind from decarbonization efforts. 
• Responsible Supply Chains: Apply environmental, human rights, and just transition standards across procurement of equipment, materials, and services. Use due diligence to ensure suppliers meet ethical and sustainability expectations, and set clear expectations for just labor practices around decarbonization and expectations on respecting human rights to suppliers. 
• Stakeholder Engagement and Social Dialogue: Foster inclusive, transparent, and continuous engagement with key stakeholders that will be impacted by the transition, especially workers (through social dialogue) and communities (including Indigenous people), to inform decision-making and build mutual trust. Establish formal mechanisms for dialogue, engagement, grievances, and participation to ensure voices are heard and incorporated throughout the transition process. 
• Community Rights, Consent, and Inclusion: With over 50 percent of known reserves of transition minerals like copper, lithium, and others located on or near Indigenous and agrarian community lands, respect for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is critical. Recognize and integrate Indigenous Peoples Principles and Protocols for Just Transition into company approaches. 
• Benefit-Sharing and Local Development: Ensure communities share in the value created through royalties, equity, local hiring, and infrastructure investment. Go beyond impact mitigation to build long-term regional resilience, trust, and partnership. Rely on co-creation to ensure that mining is carried out with the community, not just in the community.  

The mining sector bears a responsibility to implement a just transition that addresses its distinctive challenges. Mining companies can become champions of a just transition by transforming the way they do business: cutting emissions, innovating cleaner processes, upholding labor and human rights, and sharing benefits with local communities. Through honest engagement, benefit-sharing, rights protection, and long-term investment in regional well-being, mining companies can provide a foundation built on social trust and consent, allowing for the energy transition to be just, equitable, and inclusive.  

Interested in learning more about just transition or taking action across your mining operations, supply chains, and communities? Connect with BSR’s Energy and Extractives team to learn how we can support. 

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Anne Kelly

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Ellen Shenette

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Linda Freiner

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Ashleigh Owens

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Thomas Schrøder

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Blog | Thursday August 14, 2025

Developing Integrated Approaches to Human Rights, Climate, and Nature

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In July 2025, the International Court of Justice affirmed that all nations have a binding duty to protect the climate, recognizing a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental human right. It warned that inaction or harmful conduct—such as fossil fuel production and subsidies—may require reparations, including through ecosystem restoration and financial compensation. These obligations remedy both human welfare and biodiversity harms, underscoring the inseparable link between environmental protection and human rights.

This decision, alongside ambitious regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and rising litigation on climate- and nature-related human rights impacts, reflects growing recognition of the need to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss while upholding human rights.

For business, this is an opportunity to integrate environmental and social strategies, as impacts on climate, deforestation, land degradation, and pollution are often tied to human rights harms—and vice versa. And while business efforts to mitigate climate change are urgently needed, climate action that ignores people can lead to job dislocation and community displacement.

Many companies, however, struggle with effective human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD) due to fragmented regulations, siloed internal systems, and limited guidance, slowing progress toward integrated, impactful action.

Key Challenges

Siloed Operational Frameworks

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises’ risk-based due diligence approach sets consistent expectations for businesses seeking to address their impacts on climate, nature, and human rights. However, this approach is inconsistently reflected across operational frameworks in these fields. These operational frameworks are intended to guide impact identification, assessment, and action on internationally recognized human rights standards and global environmental goals and targets (e.g., UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Science-Based Targets initiative, Science-Based Targets for Nature), hindering integrated HREDD. Differences in terminology, methodologies, and stakeholder expectations of each persist, making it harder for teams within companies to coordinate. Some frameworks prioritize outward impact management, others financial materiality, and a few integrate both, complicating alignment.

Different Data Sets, Varying Methodologies

One challenge for companies in delivering effective HREDD lies in the data. Environmental assessments typically rely on quantitative metrics, e.g., carbon emissions, energy use, or water consumption. Human rights assessments are largely qualitative, requiring stakeholder input, contextual nuance, and narrative disclosure. The ease of quantifying environmental data and performance can lead companies to prioritize environmental over social initiatives.

Integrating qualitative and quantitative data is essential for a complete risk picture. Scientific indicators provide critical metrics, but combining them with local knowledge and cultural context can uncover issues that numbers alone miss. This approach strengthens decision-making when data are incomplete and helps identify cumulative impacts where different risks intersect and amplify each other. For institutional investors (or universal owners, such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds), this is critical, as systemic risks from the interaction between climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequality pose a far greater threat to portfolios than the performance of any single company.

Some sectors, like oil, gas, and mining, have incorporated social considerations into Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), producing Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs). However, the primary purpose of such assessments is not to assess a company’s broader impacts against internationally agreed environmental conventions. Rather, ESIAs are project-specific tools designed to identify, predict, evaluate, and mitigate potential environmental and social impacts before a project proceeds and in compliance with domestic laws and permitting requirements, which may differ from international standards.

Limited Guidance on Interaction and Synergies between EU-Wide Sustainability Laws

The EU’s sustainability laws were developed by different Commission bodies on separate timelines, with limited guidance on how requirements are meant to work together. This raises practical questions, including:

• How should high-level due diligence under CSDDD support compliance with more prescriptive regulation, e.g., EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), EU Batteries Regulation?
• Can EUDR risk assessments be leveraged to support compliance with other requirements, e.g., EU Forced Labour Regulation?
• How can integrated HREDD, including in the context of climate transition plans under CSDDD, inform CSRD reporting on intersecting environmental and social impacts?

These and other factors can contribute to siloed compliance approaches, where legal teams may lead on CSDDD; environment, health, and safety departments on environmental impacts; and finance teams on non-financial reporting of HREDD under CSRD. While dedicated teams, systems, and resources can be valuable for managing business impacts on people and the environment, working in silos can create fragmented cultures, poor information sharing, and duplicative processes that fail to build on existing, well-established approaches. This can undermine a coherent strategic direction and weaken leadership buy-in.

The Path Forward: Building Bridges Across Fields and Business Functions

An integrated approach to climate, nature, and human rights is essential to long-term business value. While geopolitical tensions may slow regulatory momentum, expectations are rising for companies to holistically address their impact on people and the planet.

Some companies are already moving in this direction. For example, Unilever’s People and Nature Policy connects deforestation, regenerative agriculture, and human rights, including land rights and the protection of human rights defenders. A food and beverage company is tackling emissions, waste and pollution, and human rights by adopting a circular economy model developed with local governments to support and protect informal waste workers. 

How BSR Can Help

To support companies, BSR is undertaking initiatives that provide clarity on coherently implementing standards:

• Multi-stakeholder engagement to bring key organizations together, including standard setters, to develop a shared understanding of what good looks like when integrating human rights and environmental impacts into one due diligence process
• Building a platform on people-centered climate action in private capital markets to support private equity and venture capital investors on advancing a just transition
• Supporting members on integrated human rights and environmental due diligence in line with OECD Guidelines
• Creating collaborative spaces for companies to advance in this area, including through the Human Rights Working Group, Climate and Nature Working Group, and Impactful Sustainability Due Diligence Roundtable Series.
• Developing insights, including on how to take an integrated approach to climate and human rights under CSDDD and across regulatory compliance efforts.

Interested in implementing effective HREDD in your company? Reach out to BSR’s Human Rights team.

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Femke de Man

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Chris Coulter

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