XXXI International Mineral Processing Congress 2024 Proceedings/Washington, DC/Sep 29–Oct 3 11
life cycle by demonstrating that their focus is on design for
recycling and showing the longevity of the metal achieved
through recycling. We will consider all these factors in more
detail later.
Trust is pivotal in determining corporate and societal
response to delivering sustainability. For decades IPSOS
has been tracking the Veracity Index of all professions,
Figure 3. It is evident that engineers rate highly at 85%,
second to nurses, in being regarded as truthful, whereas
trust in the business leaders of corporations is low at 30%
(politicians being the lowest at 9%!) (IPSOS, 2023). The
Edelman Trust Barometer (Edelman Trust Institute, 2024)
also shows us that trust in business within nations is highly
variable too (Figure 4), an interesting fact in itself.
So, we see the challenge of society respecting the truth-
fulness of engineers but not business corporations. One
might ask, so what can mineral processing engineering com-
munity do in this space given the juxtaposition? We will sug-
gest in our conclusions that the answer to this is that they
can do a great deal to help!
Perception of the Minerals Engineering Sector’s
Ambition to Deliver Sustainability
The sustainability challenges are not new and industry-led
action has been manifest by companies and sector pro-
ducers for several decades now. As the IEA team state in
their report (IEA, 2021), no country is capable of driving
necessary changes on its own, which fortunately led to the
2015 Paris agreement, and action by several organizations
including Co-operation and Development (OECD), and
World Bank Forum. In the sector various specialist aca-
demic initiatives and consortia developed e.g., University
of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI),
World Gold Council for Minerals, Metals and Sustainable
Development (IGF), Energy Resource Governance Initiative
(ERGI), Advanced Process Prediction and Control Group
(IEA, 2021). Consortium for Coarse Particle Processing
Research from University of Queensland’s SMI (2024)
and Mining3 (2024) work in autonomous electric hauler
systems &hydra plug-in systems. Such valuable initiatives
have produced a range of guidance including arguments
for prioritizing improvements in each units of operation
like directed research from The Global Comminution
Collaborative (GCC, 2024) which seeks to identify pri-
orities to shift energy use in comminution through radi-
cal innovation to breakage equipment by using alternative
breakage methods incremental systems approaches to heat
recovery or, most useful, simply reducing the throughput
through earlier gangue rejection, or treatment of higher-
grade ores through more selective mining (Ballantyne, and
Powell, 2014). Key technical questions to be explored are,
what is the optimum expectation for driving every unit
operation in a plant towards net-zero? What is currently
achievable and what might be achievable in the next decade
Source: Edelman Trust Institute 2024
Figure 4. Percentage trust in business in 28 countries in 2024 based on the Edelman Trust Barometer
life cycle by demonstrating that their focus is on design for
recycling and showing the longevity of the metal achieved
through recycling. We will consider all these factors in more
detail later.
Trust is pivotal in determining corporate and societal
response to delivering sustainability. For decades IPSOS
has been tracking the Veracity Index of all professions,
Figure 3. It is evident that engineers rate highly at 85%,
second to nurses, in being regarded as truthful, whereas
trust in the business leaders of corporations is low at 30%
(politicians being the lowest at 9%!) (IPSOS, 2023). The
Edelman Trust Barometer (Edelman Trust Institute, 2024)
also shows us that trust in business within nations is highly
variable too (Figure 4), an interesting fact in itself.
So, we see the challenge of society respecting the truth-
fulness of engineers but not business corporations. One
might ask, so what can mineral processing engineering com-
munity do in this space given the juxtaposition? We will sug-
gest in our conclusions that the answer to this is that they
can do a great deal to help!
Perception of the Minerals Engineering Sector’s
Ambition to Deliver Sustainability
The sustainability challenges are not new and industry-led
action has been manifest by companies and sector pro-
ducers for several decades now. As the IEA team state in
their report (IEA, 2021), no country is capable of driving
necessary changes on its own, which fortunately led to the
2015 Paris agreement, and action by several organizations
including Co-operation and Development (OECD), and
World Bank Forum. In the sector various specialist aca-
demic initiatives and consortia developed e.g., University
of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI),
World Gold Council for Minerals, Metals and Sustainable
Development (IGF), Energy Resource Governance Initiative
(ERGI), Advanced Process Prediction and Control Group
(IEA, 2021). Consortium for Coarse Particle Processing
Research from University of Queensland’s SMI (2024)
and Mining3 (2024) work in autonomous electric hauler
systems &hydra plug-in systems. Such valuable initiatives
have produced a range of guidance including arguments
for prioritizing improvements in each units of operation
like directed research from The Global Comminution
Collaborative (GCC, 2024) which seeks to identify pri-
orities to shift energy use in comminution through radi-
cal innovation to breakage equipment by using alternative
breakage methods incremental systems approaches to heat
recovery or, most useful, simply reducing the throughput
through earlier gangue rejection, or treatment of higher-
grade ores through more selective mining (Ballantyne, and
Powell, 2014). Key technical questions to be explored are,
what is the optimum expectation for driving every unit
operation in a plant towards net-zero? What is currently
achievable and what might be achievable in the next decade
Source: Edelman Trust Institute 2024
Figure 4. Percentage trust in business in 28 countries in 2024 based on the Edelman Trust Barometer