Sustainable Development Norms and CSR in the Global Mining Sector

Abstract

This chapter seeks to account for the process by which sustainable development emerged as a norm that informs the policies and practices of mining companies. As recently as 15 years ago, only a small number of major mining companies were reporting on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies, and fewer still had come to grapple with the notion of sustainable development. Yet, at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the vast majority of major mining companies frame their CSR policies in terms of sustainable development, reporting on the economic, social, and environmental aspects of their operations. Since the mid-2000s, an increasing number of mid-tier companies are doing the same.1