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Share benefits to save mining - analysts

Johannesburg - Mining companies need to re-examine and expand their business models to unlock benefits for communities to help make mining in South Africa sustainable, according to a range of experts.

Entrepreneur Jason Drew, water resources specialist Dr Anthony Turton, and director of Wits University's Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry Caroline Digby spoke about sustainability in the resources industry at a conference hosted by the Gordon Institute of Business Science on Monday.

Drew, an "environmental capitalist", said the world was changing dramatically and these changes were unfolding faster than ever before.

"One thing we cannot control are environmental risks we are running... We must do things differently and very quickly," he said.

New business models, based on durability, reparability, and sharing needed to be devised and adopted to cope with these changes, but this need not be at the risk of profit.

For example, washing machines were generally manufactured with a life span of a few years. A washing machine built to last decades and easy to repair would mean that the manufacturer would not need to worry about competing with other manufacturers every few years.

Recyclability and the creative use of waste products to reduce the need for resources did not only make environmental sense, but business sense too.

One of Drew's ventures involved "taking the piss out of the slums".

Toilets of a design that separated faecal matter and urine were sold mainly to women entrepreneurs.

For the entrepreneur there were two revenue streams - people paid a small fee to use the toilets, and waste products were bought back from the toilet owners.

"We take out those drums [containing the waste] and replace them with clean ones."

The waste products were then used to make "man-ure" and nitrogen rich fertiliser favoured by coffee farmers.

"Putting the goodies back into the soil covers the operating costs of the business," Drew said.

"We are making a fortune taking the piss out of the slums."

Turton, a professor at the University of the Free State's Centre for Environmental Management, said industry liabilities, including finite natural resources, environmental footprints due to mining activities, and unrest in mining communities could no longer be "externalised" from the industry, he argued.

Creative mitigation of risks could broaden the mining industry to eventually create more benefits, which needed to trickle down to communities.

"It is all about benefit sharing, underpinned by perceptions of fairness and equity."

Open, frank discussion was needed, from government, mining companies, and mining communities, to look at how policies could support sustainability.

"Institutional arrangements are needed to manage this increased complexity," Turton said.

"South Africa is an amazing country... the first country to negotiate itself out of civil war.

"Surely we can have an honest discussion with ourselves about the social licence to mine."

Digby said gaining the trust of communities was central to securing a social licence to mine, which involved public support for businesses seen as beneficial to all involved.

Companies needed to be honest about potential risks involved in their operations, and explain what they were doing to mitigate these risks to build trust and legitimacy.

Failure to establish or maintain this social licence opened the door to unrest in various degrees, such as work being halted due to protests and strikes, or even injury and death, as seen in Marikana in the North West in August 2012.

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