A Framework for Technology Assessment in the Minerals Down Under Flagship: Integrating Life Cycle Assessment and Social Analysis of Mining Technologies

[摘要] Technology development, adoption and deployment in the mining and minerals industry are activities that need to demonstrate environmental sustainability, but also broad societal acceptance. The aim of this report is to examine how life cycle assessment (LCA), which is an established method for assessing the environmental impacts of mining technologies and processes, might be integrated with social analysis to provide a more comprehensive way of assessing both the environmental and social impacts of these mining technologies and processes. In effect, part of this challenge has been about determining how best to structure an interdisciplinary and integrated research framework that can capture the technical and social science expertise that exists within the Minerals Down Under Flagship in order to enhance the overall science impact of the Flagship. This responds to both the increasing importance of achieving environmental sustainability and efficiencies, and the need to understand the ongoing social acceptability of the Australian mining and minerals industry into the future. Key decisions about the future development and deployment of mining technologies need to be responsive to this range of concerns.In terms of bringing the technical and social sciences together in this way, the interdisciplinary domain of Technology Assessment (TA) provides an appropriate overarching framework in which to develop integrated research practice. LCA is also recognised as a valuable tool within the broader domain of TA and this provides scope for thinking about how to consider it alongside other (and quite diverse) tools such as stakeholder engagement and participatory methods. These more deliberative processes also provide the necessary scope to consider and assess the social values and tradeoffs involved in decisions about technology, which are often too complex to be assessed through purely technical means or alternatively reveal how impacts are spread unevenly across stakeholders or geographical locations.In setting about identifying what kind of primary data was required to inform these evaluations (or assessments) to inform decisions about mining technologies and processes, there seem to be two key areas of greatest potential where interdisciplinary expertise can enhance the path to impact for the Flagship. These include:1.Using the stages of LCA to map key social considerations and impacts2.Using LCA data much more centrally in social engagement processes to inform deliberative processes.In terms of the potential for this approach to be applied in practice, we have selected the issue of water in mining as a test case. Working with the idea of water in mining provides opportunity to both consider how environmental and social issues intersect in practice but also the impetus for developing a methodological process for conducting a systematic review of the peer reviewed literature that takes its inspiration from LCA to generate quantitative data sets based on qualitative information. This demonstrates a first attempt at mapping key social considerations to life cycle stages, and also highlights the potential of this process to be refined so as to provide more targeted or context specific data.Broadly, this report maps out the range of theoretical underpinnings leading to the development of an integrated research framework that will harness the collaborative expertise of technical and social scientists within the Flagship. The next immediate step based on the development of this integrated research framework is its transformation into a program of integrated research practice. This will occur through a series of proposed case study trials that will demonstrate the capacity of this framework to assess the combined environmental and social impacts of mining technologies. Even more broadly, it is also anticipated that these case studies will provide the success stories that will pioneer the development of 'mining TA'.

[发布机构] CSIRO

[学科分类] 地球科学(综合)