Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the mining industry reconciles the conflicting demands of stakeholders in pursuit of 'sustainable development' in Zambia, Ghana and Peru. Central to this is how companies conceptualise sustainable development through the lenses of risk and corporate social responsibility.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the conflicted role of the mining industry in sustainable development. Subject to decades of civil society critique, mining was once a pariah, the archetypal environmentally destructive industry. However, since the 1992 Rio conference to the more recent responses to the Sustainable Development Goals, the mining industry has moved to reorient itself through a series of global initiatives which elaborate ways mining can and does contribute to sustainable development. In this paper I explore how the industry has sought to reconcile the conflicting demands of a range of stakeholders in pursuit of 'sustainable development' in Zambia, Ghana and Peru. Central to this is the way mining companies internally conceptualise sustainable development through the lenses of risk and corporate social responsibility. Recasting multi-scalar pressures from investors, national governments, civil society and local communities on mining companies to improve their environmental and social impacts as a range of 'risks', shapes how companies resource and target their efforts with important consequences. While sustainable development investments in developing countries are presented as atechnical benevolent interventions by mining companies, this paper examines the knowledges and practices of these interventions to promote sustainable development as deeply political, contested and contradictory.