2021: 1st Year of the Modified TSM Cycle

For the first year of implementation of the Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) Program under the Modified Cycle, member-firms of the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP) with operating mines were required to (1) identify gaps between their current systems and processes on one hand, and the TSM Protocols and Indicators on the other; and, (2) design and implement programs to address those gaps.  These firms were also encouraged to voluntarily submit their self-assessment reports to COMP, which reports were not yet to be made public.

Meanwhile, COMP was tasked to identify candidates for Verification Service Providers (VSPs or External Verifiers) and to submit their names to the Community of Interest Advisory (COI) Panel for approval.

Verification Service Providers

COMP has established a process of External Verification for ensuring that COMP member companies’ reporting on TSM performance indicators is consistent, accurate and transparent.

Before embarking on the search for VSPs, COMP finalized, and secured the approval of the COI Panel for, the Terms of Reference (ToR) for VSPs.  The ToR was developed to ensure that:

  • COMP follows a clear and consistent process for hiring verification services.
  • COMP VSPs meet the minimum standards and conform to defined procedures to perform an assessment that can be relied upon by COMP members and their communities of interest.

Individuals who wish to provide verification services to a COMP member must meet, among others, the following requirements, at a minimum:

  • Must have familiarity with, or worked in (either as an employee, consultant, or a government regulator), the Philippine mining industry but is not, at the time of external verification, connected with any COMP member company either as an employee or a consultant.
  • All VSPs must participate in a COMP TSM verification workshop prior to performing any TSM verification work on behalf of a COMP member.
  • A VSP must be “Independent” from the client.
  • The VSP shall ensure that it does not in any way convey the impression that the use of any other services would result in preferential treatment of the client or its operations during in the conduct of the TSM verification.
  • Prior to a contractual engagement for performing a TSM verification assessment, a VSP who belongs to a larger organization shall clearly identify to the client any technical or management work the organization has been retained to perform by the client and/or its facilities on any of the subject areas covered by the TSM verification.

Like the COI Panelists, the VSP candidates identified by COMP are well-respected individuals who are acknowledged experts in the technical, environmental, and social development fields.  A partial list of candidates was submitted to the COI Panel during their first meeting in 2021 on July 1, and the full list, during their second on November 25.  The entire list was approved during the second meeting.

The VSP Candidates are as follows:

 

VSP Training

The Canadian government, through the Canada Embassy Trade Mission, in an expression of support for the Philippines to succeed in its TSM journey, announced that it will subsidize the funding for the VSP training, scheduled in the first quarter of 2022 and to be conducted by the Mining Association of Canada (MAC).

The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management

The Global Tailings Review (GTC) – consisting of the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Council on Mining and Metals, and the Principles for Responsible Investment –  issued the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (the Standard) about a year after the dam collapse at Vale’s Corrego de Feijao Mine in Brumadinho, Brazil.

(Some 270 people died as a result of the collapse that happened in January 2019.  According to experts, the dam failure released around 12 million cubic meters of tailings that could pollute over 300 kilometers of river. Vale – the owner of the mine – had to payout a total of US$7 billion to the victims’ families.  Vale’s stock price fell 24%, losing the equivalent of US$19 billion in market capitalization, the biggest single day loss in the history of the Brazilian stock market)

The Standard is directed at Operators and applies to tailings facilities, both existing and to-be-built. It makes clear that extreme consequences to people and the environment from catastrophic tailings facility failures are unacceptable.

Operators must have zero tolerance for human fatalities and strive for zero harm to people and the environment from the earliest phases of project conception.

To be compliant with the Standard, Operators must use spe­ci­fied measures to prevent the catastrophic failure of tailings facilities and to implement best practices in planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, monitoring, closure and post closure activities.

 

 TSM Alignment with the Standard

In response to the GTC’s call, MAC sought to align TSM with the Standard, an undertaking that took MAC about a year to complete – in April 2021.

A line-by-line equivalency analysis reveals that TSM meets and exceeds the Standard in several respects:

  1. The Table of Conformance of the Tailings Management Protocol provides more detailed and rigorous performance measurement expectations. For example, the Standard has three high-level requirements to developing and implementing an Operations, Maintenance and Surveillance manual or OMS, whereas TSM’s Table of Conformance identifies more than 120 items to be addressed to be in conformance with the TSM requirement to develop and implement an OMS manual at Level A.
  2. The tailings management component of TSM reflects years of implementation experience, including input from a 2015 independent review.
  3. The Indigenous and Community Relationships Protocol reflects almost 20 years of implementation experience and takes a more comprehensive approach to identifying and addressing human and community rights and benefits.
  4. TSM has an established assurance system and members have been measuring, reporting and assuring their TSM performance since 2006.

Good governance, including a management systems approach, plays an essential role in responsible tailings management and preventing catastrophic failures. TSM addresses tailings management governance in a much more detailed and comprehensive manner than the Standard, providing a more thorough foundation to help ensure good governance and informed decision-making throughout the life cycle.

It was also determined that the TSM Tailings Management Protocol, TSM Indigenous and Community Relationships Protocol and TSM Water Stewardship Protocol are very closely aligned with the Standard in all aspects related to governance, community relationships and water stewardship.

Some refinements to TSM were made and these are now captured in the latest version of A Guide to the Management of Tailings Facilities.

MAC has approved a new TSM Climate Change Protocol that includes requirements related to climate change adaptation, and a new Guide on Climate Change Adaptation for the Mining Sector. This new protocol and guide will further improve TSM alignment with those requirements in the Standard that refer to the potential impacts of climate change.

 

COMP Technical Working Group

Given that COMP’s TSM Protocols and Indicators are patterned after MAC’s, COMP had to ensure that the Philippines follows suit.  COMP formed the Tailings Management Protocol Technical Working Group —  composed of technical and environment experts from 12 COMP member companies – and convened on June 17, 2021.

Following the refinements undertaken by MAC to align TSM with the Standard, COMP’s Technical Working Group was split into two teams to work on two Action items.

The first team was tasked to review the Chamber’s Tailings and OMS Guides as well as Table of Conformance, while the second team was tasked to review and Filipinize the (1) Climate Change Protocol, and its supporting document, the (2) Guide on Climate Change Adaptation for the Mining Sector.

Both Technical Groups presented their recommendations to the COI Panel on November 25, 2021, and the Panel approved the following recommendations:

  • Revisions to the Tailings Management Protocol:
  • A minor revision was added to Performance Indicator #2: “Tailings Management System and Emergency Preparedness Measures” to include “compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements and other compliance obligations”; and
  • Verbatim adoption of the revised versions of this Protocol’s three reference guides.
  • The Adoption of the Filipinized Climate Change Protocol and its supporting Guide on Climate Change Adaptation for the Mining Sector

 

Climate Change: COMP’s 8th Protocol

In 2020, COMP did not adopt the Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Management Protocol – the foundation for MAC’s new Climate Change Protocol – because the Review Teams that Filipinized the MAC Protocols agreed that the Philippines does not have clear-cut measurements on carbon emissions.  Pierre Gratton, MAC president, strongly recommended COMP’s adoption of the Climate Change Protocol and Guide as this will further improve TSM’s alignment with those requirements in the Standard that refer to the potential impacts of mining on climate change – a topic that has been in the headlines in recent years.  The recommendation enjoys the full supported of the Philippine COI Panel.

COMP’s adoption of the Climate Change Protocol not only supports the alignment with the Standard of COMP members with tailings facilities.  It also supports the alignment of nickel producers with other environment, social, and governance (ESG) standards, such as Responsible Steel.

Moreover, the Guide is the only mine-related reference that provides methods or procedures on incorporating climate change considerations in the operator’s decision-making process.

The Filipinized version includes local policies, compliances, and obligations related to Climate Change.  It also incorporates changes in terms (e.g., “facilities” to “mine site”, and “local community of interest” to “stakeholders”), as well as in definition of terms to align with other Filipinized Protocols.

 

COI Panel Meetings

The COI Panel had only one meeting in 2020 shortly before the pandemic lockdowns.  The members had two meetings – both via Zoom – in 2021 During their first meeting on July 1 they were presented with a partial list of VSP candidates and apprised on developments on the TSM Program.  Their second meeting was on November 25 during which the Panel approved all 13 VSP candidates, as well as the recommendations of the COMP Technical Working Group on the revisions to the Tailings Management Protocol, and the adoption of the Filipinized Climate Change Protocol.

 

 

Webinar on TSM Experiences and Best Practices

To sustain the awareness of TSM among our members, COMP conducted a webinar on July 2021.

The webinar was again a joint undertaking between COMP, MAC, and the Canadian Embassy.

Some 120 representatives from COMP member companies participated in the webinar, which featured four presenters from Canada and Australia who shared case studies on experiences and best practices of mining companies that have been implementing TSM in other parts of the globe.  The expertise and deep involvement of these presenters in the topics covering four of the seven TSM Protocols COMP had adopted at that point proved to be of great value to COMP members as they prepare for the full implementation of TSM.