Analyzing sustainability indicator for Chinese mining sector

Mining sector always comes under severe scrutiny due to their negative impacts towards society and environment. Several studies contributed to reduce these impacts exists in the mining operations, in the development, studies also started to explore various assessment mechanism to understand the mining firm's sustainability impact. Among such assessment strategies, sustainability indicators gained huge momentum in recent years specifically with mining operations. This study considers one such area to focus, sustainability indicator analysis in mining. There are several sustainability indicators were introduced in the literature, which makes the consideration of sustainability indicators as a chaotic process for practitioners. Considering the fact, this study sought to explore the influential sustainability indicator and their corresponding sustainability dimension with the case context of China. As a major global manufacturer, China explores different ways to do a sustainable mining business for their long-term growth and this study could impact on their sustainable development goals roadmap. Different sustainability indicators considering mining were collected from the existing studies and further validated and categorized with expert opinions under their respective dimensions of sustainability (economy, environment, and society). The validated sustainability indicators were evaluated through a multi criteria decision making tool, DEMATEL. The inputs for the analysis were collected from a Chinese mining case company. The results revealed the influential sustainability indicator for Chinese mining sector. By understanding the most and least influential indicators, the Chinese mining practitioners can eliminate the strategies to motivate the least influential indicator and improve the strategies to motivate most influential indicator.

Automated summary

The mining sector is often criticized for its negative impacts on society and the environment. This study focuses on exploring influential sustainability indicators and their corresponding dimensions in the Chinese mining sector. Using a multi-criteria decision making tool called DEMATEL, the study evaluates and identifies the most influential sustainability indicators for Chinese mining.