Paper short abstract:

The role of sustainability standards in legitimating responsible mineral production is explored, revealing social performance discourses in light of changing expectations by industry stakeholders.

Paper long abstract:

Voluntary sustainability standards have become major institutional actors in legitimizing businesses. Their emergence has skyrocketed since the 1990s, leading also in the mining industry to more than 20 initiatives formulating compliance requirements for minerals production. Six international initiatives on sustainability in the mining industry are currently about to set up their operations.

Scholars in political science and international relations have traditionally investigated the emergence of private actors in arenas of global governance, but why and how initiatives emerge in a crowded space has been neglected in this field. For this reason, a content analysis of a new private sustainability standard was conducted in comparison with previously applied standards in the mining industry. The results indicate that the promulgated best practices by new standard actors constitute a shift in underlying assumptions and a corresponding changing emphasis of social performance discourses. The comparative analysis highlights further how initiatives differ in their emphasis on performance assumptions and discourses by which business operations are legitimized. Interviews with 20 industry stakeholders of the new private sustainability standard provide further nuanced insights into changing expectations about the legitimating role of actors and institutions.

The paper concludes with further research needs, highlighting the potential for interesting ethnographic studies to improve our understanding of sustainability initiative effectiveness and related industry performance.