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Abstract

Water is a critical shared resource for communities, ecosystems, and the mining industry. Leading mining companies increasingly recognize the need for water stewardship: managing water in socially equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically beneficial ways. The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM, 2023) has helpfully established a Water Stewardship Maturity Framework to guide miners in advancing their practices. The Water Stewardship journeys of the major global diversified miners are noticeably different. BHP led early with an integrated strategy approach and now continues to refine context-based targets. Anglo American, spurred on by the CEO Water Mandate, established very ambitious forward-looking goals enabled by audacious technological innovation. Glencore started later than these two pathfinders but has quickly moved to comprehensive disclosure regarding its water strategy. Rio Tinto has combined internal targets with site-based public disclosure transparency. This sets the stage for peer learning, especially for companies that started even later, to adopt successful tactics from the pioneers. It begins with a comparison of water stewardship approaches across four globally diversified miners: Anglo American, BHP, Glencore, and Rio Tinto. The paper then examines two fruitful approaches: Glencore’s 2019 Water Report and Rio Tinto’s Water Dashboard. Finally, lessons are extracted for a “Peer 4” (an anonymized company among its other peers) to consider emulating in the interests of accelerating the “catch-up” it needs to be closer to its more respected peers, as seen in relative ESG ratings.