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(April 6, 2001) Terms of Reference Sustainable Minerals Roundtable (Roundtable on Indicators of Sustainable Development for Mineral/Material and Energy Systems) Draft Mission, Goals and Guiding Principles We envision a future in which the capacities of mineral/material and energy systems meet the demands of current and later generations, while maintaining or enhancing environmental, social, and economic systems in the U.S. and the world. Introduction Sustainable development is a recent paradigm that has been adopted by many international organizations, governments at all levels, agencies, non-governmental institutions, and private firms. The sustainable development vision has, and will, structure policies (public and private) and responses. Sustainable development aims to meet the needs of today while ensuring the opportunity for future generations to develop as they desire. Because mineral and energy resources offer both positive and negative contributions to a sustainable future, stakeholders representing government, the mineral and energy industry, and the environmental community expressed interest in finding ways to include minerals and energy in the discussion of sustainable resource management. In response, the Forest Service provided a forum within which such discussions could take place. There was agreement at the initial meeting in June 1999, that multi-stakeholder dialog and information-sharing needed to continue, which resulted in the formation of the Sustainable Minerals Roundtable. Begun in June 1999, by the U.S. Forest Service, soon joined by the U.S. Geological Survey, SMR was a response to the need for measurements of sustainable development (indicators) for non-renewable resources that would be broadly applicable, acceptable to all stakeholders, and meet the needs of the public, policy makers, and private firms in their respective roles. SMR is open to all interested parties, and meetings are held around the country in order to facilitate broad participation involve diverse viewpoints. Participants have included individuals associated with agencies of the Federal government interested in mining and minerals and energy, private firms engaged in non-renewable resource extraction, local governments, including tribal organizations, and non-governmental organizations. Two other roundtables are developing sustainable development indicators related to forestry and rangelands. Since its inception, SMR has worked to define itself and the boundaries of its work through open discussion and lively debate. Through this process it has developed a mission statement, a vision, a list of guiding principles, a set of tasks, an indicator framework, a timeline, and a start to a set of relevant indicators of sustainability for mineral resources, organized to the degree appropriate under the existing Criteria from the Montreal Process. Indicators describe, display, or predict the status or trend of some aspect of sustainable development. Rather than work toward a single, consensus set of indicators, participants in the SMR are free to propose any indicator that they believe will be essential to analysis of the relationship of mineral/material and energy systems to sustainable development. Notes in italics, below, annotate the decisions reached to date in the SMR process. Vision We envision a future in which the capacities of mineral/material and energy systems meet the demands of current and later generations, while maintaining or enhancing the environmental, social, and economic systems in the U.S. and the world. This vision statement was created to give a sense of direction to the work of the SMR. It was developed over several meetings and edited collaboratively by the participants to portray the group understanding of just what sustainable development meant in the context of non-renewable resources. Mission The Mission of the Roundtable is to support the nations commitment to sustainable development. The Roundtable will develop indicators of sustainability, based on social, economic, and environmental factors, to provide a means for assessing the status and trends of minerals/materials and energy systems. Participants also worked over the course of several meetings to refine a mission statement that would at once provide boundaries on the extent of the work while including all the resources that were relevant. The language "minerals/materials and energy systems" was adopted to emphasize that the universe of concern included such dimensions as recycling, substitution of materials, research and development, and the fungibility of energy including renewable sources. Guiding Principles Guiding principles for indicator development, in the context of the Mission of the SMR., were created, again over several meetings and as the result of lively discussion, to maintain constancy and discipline over the selection of issues and the construction of indicators. Guiding Principles 1. Develop indicators that will be suitable nationwide. The intent of indicators development was to characterize the nation as a whole, not particular projects, areas, or regions. 2. Acknowledge and utilize, as appropriate, other indicator initiatives. There was no need to reinvent the wheel. Other indicator efforts that captured phenomena of interest to SMR should be accepted and not replicated. We could also learn from the efforts of other indicator efforts dealing with non-renewable resource extraction such as those in Canada and the United Kingdom. 3. Ensure that indicator development process reflects issues of scale. While creating indicators that measure aspects of sustainable development for the nation, we need to bear in mind that these aspects have their impact at a variety of other scales, ranging from the local to the regional. 4. Operate within a framework similar to that used for the Montreal Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management (see below) as appropriate (other frameworks may be utilized if necessary). The Montreal Process, used for the development of criteria and indicators for the sustainable development of boreal forest resources, created an inter-governmentally accepted framework that could be generalized and adapted to the requirements of the SMR . This would allow the creation of a set of parallel indicators for diverse resources, including forests and and rangelands range/grasslands. 5. Encourage open discussion and dialogue by government, Tribal governments, non-governmental organizations, industry, academia, and other stakeholders. . Provide a forum for discussion, enhanced mutual understanding of stakeholders perspectives, and dialogue on issues related to sustainability of minerals and energy resources. This effort only has value if it is open and transparent and involves the variety of stakeholders and meets their needs. 6. Adopt the definition of sustainable development by the Brundtland Commission: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The Brundtland definition of sustainable development is the starting point for most work around the theme. There was ultimate agreement that debate over the exact meaning of that definition was futile, but that it does provide a starting point for working together. Among other debates is the question of whether sustainable development is a goal or a process. 7. Mineral/material and energy systems contribute to sustainable development by finding, extracting, producing, adding value to, using, re-using and recycling mineral/material and energy products in the most efficient manner possible, while respecting the needs and values of other resource users and maintaining and/or enhancing environmental quality for present and future generations. Realizing this goal requires a consideration of intra- and inter-generational equity, mineral consumption and depletion, among other issues. Much effort went into providing this context for the work of the SMR. The discussion that created this paragraph helped all participants to understand the scope of our work. 8. Mineral/material and energy system indicators should measure the effects on economic, environmental, and social systems. There was concern among participants that these indicators would deal with only one or two of the three dimensions of sustainable development. We agreed that we would tackle all three. 9. Neutral wording shall be used. Given the varying backgrounds and perspectives of participants, and the need to find balanced approaches to sustainable development, we agreed that neutral wording be adopted that did not prejudice policy responses. 10. We will take care to avoid selecting or not selecting measures with the intent of predetermining the results. In the pursuit of sustainable development there are tradeoffs. SMR participants agreed that specific indicators would mean different things to different people. It was only taking the indicator set as a whole that these tradeoffs could be assessed. Framework: (Generalized from the framework used for developing forestry indicators. This generalized framework has been adopted by the Forest and Rangeland Roundtables. SMR has decided to concentrate on a subset of these criteria, specifically: B. Maintenance of Productive Capacity, C. Conservation and maintenance of air, land and water (quality and quantity) soil, water, air and physical geology (including quality, quantity and form), F. Maintenance and enhancement of long-term social, economic, and cultural benefits to meet the needs of societies, and G. Legal, institutional and economic framework to support sustainable development.) SMR Montreal-like Criteria A. Conservation of biological diversity (to be addressed by the Forest and Rangeland Roundtables) B. Maintenance of (productive) capacities to produce commoditiesB1. Mineral/material and energy systems (including life cycles and recycling and reuse). B2. Ecosystems (e.g. timber and forage). (to be addressed by the Forest and Rangeland Sustainability Roundtables) F1. Social, economic, and cultural benefits stemming from energy and mineral/material systems. F2. Social, economic, and cultural benefits stemming from systems other than energy and mineral/material systems. (aspects not related to energy and mineral/material systems will be addressed by the other Sustainability Roundtables) G1. Relevant to mineral/material and energy systems G2. Relevant to other systems, (to be addressed by the Forest and Rangeland Roundtables) Timeline A. Indicator set established by mid-2001 (list of indicator names without data). Each indicator will be defined and its relevance to sustainable development noted by answering eight questions.
B. Compilation of available data for selected indicators, and assessment of how difficult (privacy, cost) it will be to obtain this information should be generated by 2002. First approximation report: All proposed indicators will be evaluated by all interested parties and those for which data exists will be calculated for review by the SMR. Those for which data cannot be found will be reported to the SMR. C. Legal commitment to publish report on state of the land (USDA, USDOI, USDOE, etc. report) by 2003. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Forest Service, is mandated to publish a State of the Land Report by 2005. In anticipation of this report, the indicators selected by SMR will be published in a 2003 National Reportby the USDA as a separate report on the indicators of sustainable development of mineral/materials and energy systems. The 2003 report will be the technical report for updated indicators to be published along with other indicators in the 2005 State of the Land report. Dialogue on additional uses of the indicators and associated information will be ongoing. Meetings History
Planned
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