Sustainable Resource Development

Due to their non-renewable nature, finite resource exploitation makes sustainability a critical issue when making decisions on extraction rates. Resource sustainability is not only about ensuring future generations have access to key minerals, it also includes the impact on the areas and environments from which resources are being extracted.

To ensure continuous supply of key resources while showing regard for the sustainability of source environments, environmental impact assessments (EIA) are used. 

An EIA aims to anticipate the likely impacts of a resource extraction project on surface and ground water, soil, air, biota and humans - and then modify the project to try and minimise the negative impacts. Sometimes an EIA may lead to a project being abandoned altogether as the negative impacts are considered too great; this may especially be the case in sensitive environments.

In many countries EIAs are a legal requirement before any resource extraction project goes ahead, although the precise environmental regulations will vary from country to country. It is not necessarily the case that high-income countries have higher standards of environmental regulations and, therefore, stricter requirements concerning EIAs. In many cases, resource-extraction TNCs will follow strict environmental codes and adopt stringent EIAs to show customers the high environmental standards they operate to. Often this means that the standards they use for projects are higher than those in the country where the project takes place and helps develop a responsible market image.