ESG Issues

Overview on Social, Environmental, Governance, and Occupational Health & Safety Performance 

Minerals and metal supply chains are critical to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and for the transition to a net-zero economy. As demand for these materials grows, companies face increasing pressures to manage environmental, social, occupational health and safety, and governance risks at their facilities and across their supply chains. Evolving regulations and growing expectations from consumers, investors, and civil society call for companies to conduct due diligence to mitigate adverse impacts, report on performance, and drive positive change.  

RMI’s Approach to ESG Performance in Mineral Supply Chains 

The RMI’s approach is based on international guidelines of the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGP) and OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct, which establish the responsibility for businesses to respect human rights and the environment, prevent, and mitigate adverse impacts, and remedy adverse impacts. The RMI helps companies to:  

1. Identify, assess, and prioritize ESG risks at the facility level and within their supply chains 
2. Prevent and mitigate adverse impacts  
3. Monitor ESG performance with third-party and self-assessments 
4. Determine strategies for remediation 
5. Report ESG performance 

 

 

The RMI provides industry-leading standards, tools, and resources to help companies improve ESG performance in mineral supply chains.  

In April 2025, the RMI launched an updated Facility Standard and Supply Chain Due Diligence Plus Module which, together, provide a common framework against which companies can assess environmental, social, occupational health and safety, and governance performance in their supply chain.  

The new standard suite expands the due diligence toolkit for responsible sourcing, processing and manufacturing of raw materials to meet new and emerging regulatory requirements and to encourage continuous improvement of supplier practices across a comprehensive set of indicators.

The standard suite underwent an extensive review process in 2024-2025, beginning with benchmarking against new and incoming regulations, including the EU Battery Regulation, the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. The review process included consultations with RMI members, the public, and the RMI’s Multi-Stakeholder Standards Advisory Committee to ensure alignment with regulatory developments, stakeholder priorities, and industry practices and practicalities.

 

Standards

The RMI offers two options for assessment of environmental, social, governance, and OHS risks. A company may choose to be assessed against one or both of the standards. Access the RMI’s standards and assessment procedures on the Documents and Tools page. 

Facility Standard for Social, Environmental, OHS and Governance Risks    Purpose: For facilities to assess ESG risk management within its own operations  Available as a stand-alone assessment or in combination with the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process (RMAP) and/or Downstream Assessment Program (DAP)

Supply Chain Due Diligence Module Plus  Purpose: For facilities to assess ESG due diligence and verify ESG risk management practices within their mineral supply chains   Available only in combination with the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process (RMAP) and/or Downstream Assessment Program (DAP)

Eligible Facilities for these assessments include but are not limited to:  

• Upstream Facilities: integrated processing and mining operations, independent mining operations sourcing from third –parties*, upstream traders and/or exporters* 

• Pinch-point Processors: smelters, refiners (fine and crude), treatment units, transformation operations, plants producing anode and cathode ready materials, toll millers, aggregators, and recyclers where material transformation takes place. Processors are entities that receive material (which includes primary, intermediate and/or secondary materials) and produce refined, smelted, treated, transformed, purified, or cleaned mineral or metal products for use in downstream manufacturing and other midstream or downstream processes. 

• Downstream Facilities: downstream processors, recyclers where no material transformation takes place, component manufacturers, battery anode and cathode producers, and battery cell manufacturers. 

* Eligible for the Supply Chain Due Diligence Module Plus only

 

Tools

We enable RMI members, auditees and industry stakeholders to collaboratively assess and drive improvements on the ESG performance of their operations and supply chains. The RMI Toolkit includes:

Risk Identification	Guidelines for prioritization of minerals and metals The Material Insights platform supports companies understand their supply chains and ESG related risks. It includes an overview of standards and multi-stakeholder initiatives to enable users to collaborate and act together to mitigate and remediate risks. The Material Change report assesses the importance of 37 materials to automotive and electronic industries and evaluates environmental, social and governance risks for those materials at industry levels.
Prevention and Mitigation	The Material Insights platform includes guidance on risk mitigation and helps companies to take preventative actions.
Monitoring	The RMI’s Risk Readiness Assessment (RRA) is a self-assessment and self-reporting tool for minerals and metals producers and processors. This helps companies to understand their level of maturity in the management of ESG risks and impacts and, eventually, prepare for a third party ESG audit.   The RMI Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Standard for Mineral Supply Chains allows eligible mineral processors to evaluate their performance against ESG risks through an independent third-party audit managed by the RMI The ESG Assessment Procedure (Also in Chinese) helps companies and auditors to prepare for an audit, understand the audit results and develop follow-up actions. The Material Insights platform supports companies understand their supply chains and ESG related risks. It includes an overview of standards and multi-stakeholder initiatives to enable users to collaborate and act together to mitigate and remediate risks.
Remedy	Critical Findings protocol of the RMI ESG Assessment Procedure guides companies in taking immediate action to mitigate and remediate severe impact on human rights and environment identified through the ESG audit. Quick Guide on Remedy Grievance Platform, Grievance Checklist and Training
Continuous Improvement	RMI online courses on the platform include tutorials on selected ESG issues such as forced labor, grievance mechanism Corrective Action Plans (CAP) are a tool that helps companies audited against the RMI’s ESG standard to define and implement corrective and preventative actions to close the gaps identified during the assessment
Reporting	Responsible Mineral Reporting Toolkit OECD Monitoring Corporate Disclosures OECD Environmental Handbook

What You Can Do

• Map your supply chain and identify salient ESG risks
• Complete a Risk Readiness Assessment (RRA) for your company
• If your company has processing, smelting, refining operations, undergo RMI ESG standard audit
• If your company operations are downstream, consider RBA’s VAP audit
• Verify if your suppliers monitor and report on their ESG performance through RBA-Online
• Contact your suppliers and encourage them to complete a Risk Readiness Assessment and RMI ESG standard audit
• Use your leverage to drive mitigation, remediation and continuous improvement of adverse impacts

Learn more about the actions you can take to source responsibly:

Join the RMI and engage with peers, industry organizations and stakeholders to develop, share and utilize tools and resources for responsible minerals sourcing.