How does Saudi Arabia achieve sustainability requirements in the mining sector?
The head of the Crisis and Emergency Management Center and Secretary-General of the Sustainability Council in the Saudi Industry and Mineral Resources System said, in an interview with Al-Arabiya, that the sustainability initiative in the mining sector aims to ensure the implementation of all sustainability requirements in the Kingdom’s mines, which I have identified through many guidelines, regulations and systems. , to match the best practices worldwide.
He explained that all mining licenses in the Kingdom are issued with the completion of sustainability requirements, which include occupational safety and health, and environmental and societal impact studies, to ensure that each mine has a positive economic impact on the surrounding area.
He stressed that the Kingdom’s mining investment system ensured the need to ensure that there are no negative impacts of mines, with local development and participation to provide labor from the area surrounding the mine.
He pointed out that there is a mining control agency in the Ministry of Industry, Wealth and Minerals that works to ensure that the mines always implement all the obligations stipulated in the granted mining licenses, including environmental requirements.
He revealed that the mining control system carried out more than 640 visits to mines in the Kingdom during last November.
He said that a company for mining services has been established in the Kingdom to provide services to investors, and its work includes monitoring mining sites to achieve its development goals.
Saudi Arabia launched the Sustainability Council for the Industry and Mineral Resources System, which includes the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, along with representatives of 7 government agencies, with the aim of reviewing local legislation related to sustainability in the industrial and mining sectors, and the regional and international agreements sponsoring it.
In the context of sustainability criteria, the consortium that won the mining competition at the Al-Kheniyeh site committed to allocating 0.6% of its total annual revenue to establish a community fund for the neighboring communities, in addition to allocating up to 83% of the jobs on site to the people of the local communities.
