Ep 11: Mining and the Circular Economy (Alan Young)

Welcome to Prospecting Purpose, where we explore mining's role in shaping a sustainable, socially just, and brighter future. I'm Liz Freele, your host for this series with a rotating guest on every episode.

Have you wondered what is mining's role in the circular economy? How does an industry based on linear raw material extraction fit within the emerging global vision of circularity? Is it closed loop systems at asset level? New uses for waste rock or tailings? E-waste recycling? Metal-as-a-service? Vertical integration? Well, that's exactly what we're going to focus on today.

My co-host for this episode is Alan Young, a global circular economy expert with a contagious passion for accelerating our transformation to a zero waste low-carbon future. Alan's impressive track record features numerous notable leadership positions, including the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Circular Economy Leadership Coalition, the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, and the Materials Efficiency Research Group. Welcome, Alan.

Well, thanks very much. It's super to have you on the show.

It's a great pleasure to be here. So, first, before we start, I'd love to ask you what first drew you you to the mining because you have a a conservation background, right?

Yeah. I studied resource economics and political science and found myself in the Yukon in the early 1990s, doing some internship up there and, in the course of that, what was supposed to be a three month posting I stayed for five years.

Oh wow! There was a lot of mining going on and I got involved with a Yukon conservation society in a national initiative, which was called the White Horse Mining Initiative, which was a very intense multi-sectoral multi-stakeholder process, which lasted a couple of years. And in which I learned more than I ever thought possible about mining and also got very involved in sort of the politics and policy of it. And that just led me down a path that I've never really got off of. So, but I find it really fascinating as essential materials, and we'll talk about that, as a resource sector with lots of problems that need solving.

Absolutely. What a perfect intro. So, we're going to be talking about some of the sector's problems, and a bit about the future. So specifically, the circular economy, as you mentioned, virtually every minute of every day, we rely on minerals. And generally they're obtained in one of two ways: either raw material extraction and processing, or recycling of materials with minerals that originally came from rock extraction. And most of us know that today, resource scarcity is becoming a really big concern on this planet and that that linear way of accessing our raw materials just isn't sustainable. We don't have an infinite supply of natural resources on this planet.

Can I ask you to maybe a bit about how this topic has started to emerge in the mining industry, specifically, and what some of the main drivers are?

Sure. Well, initially, I think some in the mining industry saw this as a threat. You know, it's the idea that eventually we'll just recycle our way and won't need more mines. And I know that in some of the modelling that was done, maybe out of the European Union and others, there is a real focus on the minimization of natural resource use. So that's one aspect of the thought, but the reality is that, well, two things: one sort of side one, the down, part of the fact that we're going to be moving toward a low-carbon future, which the energy transmission, storage, generation are all super metals-intensive, materials-intensive, more broadly, but metals-intensive, particularly. So we've all seen the world bank reports, other things that have come out of the European Commission and others have pretty clearly show that there's substantial increases in the use of metals to meet our low carbon future, a bit of an irony, but it's, it's a fact. And that's sort of good news for the industry, I suppose, but it also means that given that it's such a high impact and intensity, industry moving toward that low-carbo energy system future could also move us beyond various natural thresholds in different ecosystems, communities, and others. We can't meet our low-carbon future materials needs without fundamentally changing how we're mining or else this will be a train wreck in which the combination of conflict, and as you say, materials use will result in supply interruption and, and we won't be able to meet the needs for that infrastructure as it gets built out over the next years. And seriously, clearly, recycled materials will play a significant role, but all the modelling I've seen says, you know, that it's going to be decades before we'll get anywhere near enough. And that still means increase. But the one other thing that's worth noting is that, is that in some ways the metals are, like, the perfect circularity material, because they're infinitely recyclable and incredibly durable, unlike, you know, plastics, unlike wood, unlike a lot of other things where they just degrade over time, metals can stay in the system, can be circular, if we use them properly.

Yeah. Which is a a huge opportunity. So, why don't we dig a little deeper on what it actually means to be circular in the context of mining? So for me, I tend to see circular in kind of two buckets. So, first I think about what does circularity look like at the mine-site level? Like totally closed loop, zero waste mining, basically. And then second I think about the role of the products that mining produces in a broader global circular economy. So maybe let's start with the first, at an asset level, what does it mean to you for mining to be circular? Because ideas like reprocessing, repurposing, designing out waste, they're not necessarily new to the industry, but what kind of things do we have to do at a site-level to really take it to the next level?

Yeah. I mean, I think there's sort of a, there's systems challenges and opportunities. There's supply chain. And that includes, we need to remember that mining isn't at the beginning of a supply chain, it's in the middle of supply chains. And so all the materials, all the energy that goes in and makes mining possible, mining is both a user of and supplier of materials. And so I think it's when we think about the mine-site level, it really is about, not the extraction of a raw material, but the user of many of those raw materials as well. And then as you've said, the product level piece is, is an entirely different area. The closing of different supply loops and chains will create new opportunities for different kinds of mining and different kinds of demands for materials. So I think happens at those levels. So, I mean, there's the system optimization piece, which mining companies are always looking to optimize energy use and minimize waste and find ways to change the way in which they're either paying for waste or creating liabilities or just, you know, paying money for somebody else to do that. And so we're seeing a lot with digitization and with new technologies that allow for that optimization in ways that, even five years ago, it's hard to imagine. And, so within the mine supply, I think there's a lot of work, really fascinating example of this. And it's something that I've learned over some recent work that I've done, interestingly, is if we could look at the uranium industry, because the nature of the radioactive elements they're working with, they have no latitude on waste. Everything has to be tracked, everything has to be optimized, and everything has to be done, or else, because there's no place to put it away and it has such a high cost. So interestingly, a number of examples there where we've got these super high-efficiency sites and really innovative ones that eliminate waste, because they have to, we've got a lot to learn from folks like Cameco and others who've done some very, very interesting pieces. But I think that, that, so at a systems level, I think there's a lot that can go on, but there's also things like take-back programs, shared programs, leasing programs that are very different. And so when you get into the intensification of product-use, making sure everything is used as long and as hard as it as it can, and there's ways in which things that were traditionally thrown away, even chemical processes, are now being used and reused in different ways by service providers who are bringing in their own ownership of something. And so something that would have been traditionally thrown away is no longer. And then also, we're seeing companies like tech, for example, have millions and millions of dollars that they're, they're making every year on their waste inventory of equipment and services and things like that, which would have had to either been landfilled or given away. Well, it turns out there's a huge market for that, and there's more and more of that happening in a very purposeful way. And then I think you sort of move up the line into things like re-purposing, and that comes down to the mining the values for waste. And what would have been characterized as waste before is now becoming more valuable. This also ties in for the demand for rare earths that is expanding and things that were really byproducts or just left in the ground are now looking at how we can extract those in different ways and often become very high value. I mean, thallium is a sort of a fascinating one because it was used to be a rat poison and was the most dangerous and low cost thing that you just had to try and get rid of. Well, now it's one of the highest value commodities coming out of Trail and it's used in high-tech electronic applications. There's lots of those examples out there. Germanium is another one that is turning out to be, from a minor side-product into a major piece. So all of these are also ways of repurposing waste. Things like carbon capture, of course, is going to be a big and valuable part of the future and things that have been lost. The Sudbury example around that is very good. And then work that I know you've done some work on is the repurposing of whole mine sites instead of the conventional reclamation model. If we thought more creatively in a, in a regional development model, a regional infrastructure model, what would be the best use of this other than neutralizing their toxicity? There's other things that an industrial site can be transferred into, which traditionally have been, you know, anecdotally or on an ad hoc basis, I would say. But that, things like all of those things need to be brought together into a more systems thinking whose objective is zero waste and whose objective is carbon neutrality, if not carbon positive operations. But have to be thought about together to go beyond simply harm reduction to something that's much more powerful and valuable.

You had mentioned just to to get the, to get the terms in there, you'd mentioned the hard wiring of regenerative principles and ecology as terms that I was was hoping that like pop in there. I mean, that was part of the sort of the vision I think is what I think we can sort of touch on, especially the industrial ecology and what that could look like. And then the regenerative piece as a core element of that is sort of part of what I would see as sort of the overall vision.

Okay. And these are are all awesome, obviously, but course, circularity is a a lot more than that. So maybe if we come back to that bigger question of how mining's products fit into the broader circular economy? Because thinking about that, for me, opens up the possibility to consider entirely new business models. There are significantly lower carbon footprints associated with non-virgin metal. Like, I don't know if everyone even realizes that. So just imagine, for example, you can get the same amount of gold from recycling 41 cell phones as an an entire ton of ore, like taking the average, say one gram a ton. That's wild. And I've seen studies even showing that a raw extraction costs up to 13 times more than recycling e-waste when you you do it right. Now, how is mining supposed to compete with that?

Well, I think in a few different ways. I mean, one is the fact, as we all know, that even if we did move to a hundred percent recovery of all that stuff that's above the ground, now, it wouldn't nearly be enough to meet the demands. So whether we like it or not, mining is part of our future. And I think that's just a reality. And I think that there are also ways like the ELYSIS program, the aluminum-based smelting, the zero carbon smelting programs that are out there now. And I understand there's one similar coming around copper. So there are technology breakthroughs that we're going to see, I think, as these demands come in and, you know, just completely disruptive in terms of the, the potential there. So I wouldn't discount the fact that we could significantly reduce this, the potential involvement of hydrogen and the acceleration of hydrogen energy coming through so that we're not using some of the systems that are so carbon intensive. But you're never going to get away from it completely. And, um, but I think part of what we'll, we'll be looking at is solving for a variety of problems, not just the carbon issue, but the waste issue and others. And so I think the mining value from waste approach, some of the extractions, the new technologies that are looking at re-mining tailings, the hole's already there, the issues are already there, the infrastructure is already there. That's been spent. And so when you start looking at going in and using that existing system to extract more waste, if we've got those technologies, and if there are proper regulatory and policy incentives in place, then I believe that we can be looking at extracting those things as essentially secondary. Those are recycled in a way, and pulling it out. I had an interesting discussion with some Australian colleagues recently about things like, you know, Apple and others only looking at above.

I was going to ask you about that. Like, how do we do that? Right? I we're seeing downstream users basically say, what, to meet our net net zero commitments, we're only going to source recycled materials.

Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think, again, they'll come into a big supply reality and also one of the things the dialogues that we need to have is, you know, what problems are we solving for here? We need to be solving for multiple problems and we need to be creating, and some of them are social, some of them are different ecological boundary problems, and some of them are sort of long-term legacy issues. You know, we have to work on these as a core commitment, we have to work on regenerative systems, thinking about ecosystem regeneration in, in a big way, which means that we've got to be using different kinds of technologies. And we've got to prioritize that as part of a commitment throughout the supply chain. And that includes these sorts of optimizing existing sites, not just the recycling stuff and leaving the mining as though it was something we'd like to forget about, because we can't.

Yeah. it's still a part of our of our lives and it will continue to be for quite some some time. That makes me think of something else I wanted to ask you about around this notion of commodities historically being effectively neutral substances, but in a circular economy, what could it mean to, for a mined product to compete with a value-added commodity? For example, something where you don't have to worry about the carbon footprint or the human rights risk associated with your cobalt, copper, aluminum if it came directly from the recycling loop, instead of from virgin extraction. Do you see preferential market and capital access or premiums maybe for 'circular and clean' versus 'linear and dirty'?

Absolutely. I mean, I don't know if you saw recently, but Robert Friedland, you know, the guru and bad boy of mining who's made his billions around the world and continues to do so, recently spoke, I think it was at Roundup and he was unequivocal: There will be many prices for copper. These prices will be driven by ESG factors because whether you're in Europe or Japan, you've got these global enterprises, automotive, electronic, and also the finance industry, which is coming on very strong on this area are all saying, we cannot have our businesses, stigmatized by access to these. Small, relatively small volumes that were coming around conflict, but that's that now is going to go well beyond that. I think it's, it's very clear. I mean, premiums are complex and nobody wants to admit to paying them. But, um, I think we're seeing now there'll be a variety of ways you could manifest that through preferential access to capital, through access to different financial instruments through, you know, um, direct line supply chains to companies like the BMWs of the world and others. I see that happening now. And I think it'll only accelerate.

Yeah. It's funny. Um, explicit circular principles aren't really an element we see much yet in ESG standards and frameworks, but I'm I'm also guessing is something that's going to change pretty quickly. Uh, I know for example, you're you're involved with the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance and they are actively thinking about what that looks like in terms of, you know, bringing this into a standard. What kinds of things do you think that the the industry be expecting from these ESG frameworks when it comes to the integration of circular principles in the pretty near near future?

Yeah, I think, I mean, there are importantly the zero waste piece coming together with the low-carbon piece, but also there, we need to remember that there's a very important part of, of the, of circularity that's also a social equity piece that says, it's sort of, if you, if you draw the link back to the SDGs, there's a lot of those things that have to be brought together, the Sustainable Development Goals, of course. And, and I think what we're going to see is an explicit series of metrics that are talking about the degree to which waste has been accounted for throughout supply chains, which will bring other partners in the degree to which aggressive greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. And also the way in which, um, the social legacy is there. And, you know, finally, um, to be the other part of the, um, the picture on, on circularity is what I said earlier around leaving, making sure that you, you, you help to regenerate systems ecosystems and, or ensure that they are, um, you know, uh, viable at the end of the product. So with IRMA, we're still looking at how I think we have all those elements there, but we haven't brought them into an overarching view of circularity. And one of the things, one of the real beauties of circular economy, I think, and what attracted me to it is that it, one of its great values I think, is that it's sort of a, a unifying theory in a way, it brings together these different silos where we've got sort of the energy efficiency side and we've got waste reduction side and we've got clean innovation and tend to have their own areas of expertise and they lose the opportunity.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of, they lose the, the ecological opportunity. The innovation are what happens when you bring all those things together. And I think that is one of the great values of using the circular economy lens is that it forces you into systems thinking which then start to generate different kinds of opportunities, different kinds of values when you're starting to bring those things together.

Fascinating. So when we think about, you know, business models that can really prepare us for this future in the mining industry, I'd love to explore how you see the industry participating most effectively in the the materials loops future and, and staying relevant. Like for example, what do you think about the the idea of re-identifying as a mineral solution company or even metal-as-a-service where you have a large integrated metal business model in which the company owns the whole loop, where the metal keeps going out and coming right right back in at the end of its product life. Cause we've seen, we've seen seen companies and industries outside of mines, Michelin, Phillips Xerox, you know, at Airbnb, Uber, these kinds of things, making this sort of model work. Do you see a a way for to be feasible and realistic in mining?

Absolutely. Um, I mean, we held a series as part of the World Circular Economy Forum in the fall called Mining for Circularity in which the, Mark Cutifani the CEO of Anglo-American said, you know, we started thinking of ourselves as, as a mining company. Then we started moving towards these models of more mining efficiency and mining circularity. And now he's thinking much more. He used the term... the materials solutions company, I think is his term. I know the whole industry is talking about it.

Yeah. And, and so, and then just thinking, you know, fully integrated approach. And there were ways in a very practical level, you could come back down to things like hubs, like regional hubs, where you've got these, um, dedicated industrial ecology loops that are Calgary or sorry, Sudbury or Trail would be perfect, where you got these regional hubs where there's a high demand for a variety of different kinds of materials, there is a lot of technical expertise, there's also a variety of really challenging environmental issues, which has generated a bunch of really interesting thinking about solutions. So I think we'll see more of those sorts of things where companies are actively involved in the center of a web of, you know, suppliers, innovators, service providers, and that those become generative of ideas, examples, and practical technologies and, and, uh, concepts that can be exported more, more quickly. I think that's one of the things that we should be doing as Canadians is really doubling down on these industrial hubs and really fully exploiting. You know, you look at India or you look at Japan and some of the, where they've gone with this industrial ecology is just mind boggling. And they're like years, years ahead of us in the modelling that they're doing. And we could do a lot more in that area. But then if you also look ahead, um, there's been some interesting work done by the International Resource Panel on the concept of materials leasing. And so, you know, theoretically, you could produce X amount of copper and take responsibility for it throughout its life cycle, come back in and refine it and sell it again. Now you don't have to follow through blockchain every molecule by molecule. There's things like mass balance work that had been applied in say pulp and paper, where, you know, a volume comes out that has these characteristics to it and in smelters and in others, it may make them a lot more sense for, for say a company in Japan to use a volume that's come through there, whereas, a similar characterized set of materials might be available in, in North America. You would have a commitment to, uh, a level of value that you'd process in a different way, and you get credit for it as long as you kept it coming back. So, you know, for those who, who say, well, you can't follow my copper around the world and bring it back. I don't think we need to be literal around it. There are different systems that have been used for different industries that allow us to value those materials and keep them in cycle according to a more efficient sort of regional model.

I think you're absolutely right. One thing that really interests me is this trend that I've noticed in both automotive and tech industries, where it looks like they're not even waiting around for us to get on board. Tesla, Audi BMW, Renault, Apple, like the list goes on and on these guys are all creating their own loops either fully in-house or through other partnerships, but they're not using mining companies.

No, not, not yet. Um, I think, again, we'll, we'll be looking at, as we become more ambitious about the, the percentage of, of materials that are truly circular, then we're that, you know, you're going to have to reach out and deal with the mining sector more directly. And I think as the mining sector becomes more interested and aware of the potential value of these kinds of relationships, then I think we'll see much more, um, of those kinds of collaboration, but you're absolutely right there is.... I've talked directly with, with Tesla around the future of their battery, um, uh, production and, and loops. And with BMW and others who are very aggressive about where they're going, and there's just no way to turn them back. And interestingly, to bring a COVID reference into this, this is only got stronger under the, the experience of COVID. And we've talked explicitly with a number of companies who said, Oh yeah, we're just doubling down. This has just proved the vulnerability, proved the need for these values. And this is just actually, if anything, accelerated the uptake of these kinds of values into different kinds of business models.

Oh, there's no doubt. COVID has raised awareness so incredibly around supply chains, around sourcing risks, around resource scarcity, around environmental impact. Like I get it. I get it. That there's no way they're turning back now that they're on that path.

Well, and also, just on that thought, we've got this sort of build back better movement, and it's sort of globally where we're seeing the role of the public sector and governments completely rethinking how they're going to spend tax dollars, where they're going to set investments, how they're going to use to disruption to really retool. And we need that level of public sector engagement ambition if we're going to achieve this.

So that just sort of, is further evidence And that's an important to highlight, right? It speaks back to, you mentioned earlier on the importance of systems thinking, right? We do need all these different actors to be involved, to move this forward. This is not one person's problem. It's not one person or one company that's going to find a solution, either.

Yeah. And I think that that also speaks to two question we've been doing some more thinking on in terms of sort of change theory. Um, and this happened to a degree in the electronics industry where you can gain competitive advantage as an individual company. And you will, there's, there's the advancements that a number of the big players are making, they're doing it for competitive advantage and for their shareholders. Right. But, there's a lot of work to be done in the pre-competitive space and there's a lot of work that can affect policy, that can affect technology, it can affect markets, um, and, and in the electronic sector, you know, five to ten years ago, at least, we saw a lot of that, um, where the Intels and the Apples and the Microsofts were in the room, trying to figure out what do we need to compete on and what do we need to do this? We even saw this in the oil sands where a CEO again, through it, and we can't compete on some of this stuff; we have to share knowledge, share technologies, open-source on this stuff so that everybody moves ahead. It won't happen across the board, but I think there is a really important pre-competitive space that needs to be further developed. And that's an area I'm personally really interested in.

Yeah. It's a very hard challenge for industry, I think too, it's come up in an, in a number of the episodes on that series. Maybe let's, while we're we're on that, let's dig into a bit more. What, what do you think around the notion of circularity? What do you sits within the 'pre-competitive' and what can sit within the 'competitive', if you you were giving advice to the industry?

Yeah, well certainly in the pre-competitive space, policy and regulation really important, whether it's trade, like there's huge issues on waste definitions in trade, which are a big impediment to rethinking how we're using these things. It's a tricky area. There's a lot of reasons that there's a lot of the waste policies and trade policies are there, but they need to be rethought. They're outdated and they're, they're an impediment. So that would be one example. There are areas where, I think seeing of surging ahead of higher bark commitment across a number of companies so that they can send a signal to markets that they're ready to go. And that this is the new normal. I think there are sending strong signals of, of commitment and capacity. Along with that, I think there's also you know, broader needs for certain kinds of infrastructure that can feed regionally nationally, internationally that are common in some ways. And then with that, as we said, there's standards that we need to see more consistently applied across regions, across nations, so that doesn't disadvantage certain regions unintentionally and block certain areas out of those abilities to compete. Um, so I think, you know, those, those sort of things, which we've seen examples of in other, other areas that, um, other industries, but, um, within, within particular companies, of course, um, you know, Anglo has got some really interesting examples, as I know, Rio Tinto does, and BHP, they're all in a moving head or slower as well, where they've got particular areas where they're, they're, they're surging forward, um, on technological breakthroughs. At least this is a really interesting example, the aluminum smelting piece, and that's going to be huge for them. They, they can own it, they know those sorts of markets, and I think we'll see a lot of that happening. Um, and then the individual kind of partnerships that'll happen with different companies and their supply chains to channel a particular set of values through to a company that is seeking, like an automotive company, for example, um, you know, there are examples in the jewelry industry where you've got miners of diamonds, for example, that have exclusive relationships with certain retailers and others, I could foresee cultivating expertise on a regional and commodity basis that will build new kinds of exclusive and mutually beneficial.

That makes me think what kind of, I guess more general market incentives are you seeing that are pushing mining in this direction? For example, I think that that sort of opportunity to have, uh, those sorts of partnerships, very interesting. Are you seeing other market incentives that that are pushing the industry in this in this direction?

Um, well, I mean, part of it is, uh, and I just had a conversation with one of the world's largest finance companies. And they were just talking about how, how the sort of association with the need to get tailings more fully underway, and tailing safety more advanced in a more uniform way is, is affecting a lot of the thinking around the investment community. And not only just on, you know, what's going to get factored in and the cost of the capital associated with it, but also access to things like different financial instruments, like green bonds and others that could become available to companies who are willing to invest in certain kinds of technologies and would be not available to companies who are not, and where, you know, there might be there and we've heard different, different investment houses talk about this, or finance houses, talk about these sorts of things, where you get access to different kinds of capital in different ways to solve different kinds of problems. So I think that's there. I mean, I also think we shouldn't underestimate the, um, uh, and I've heard this from many companies, just your ability to retain or to hire and retain high quality staff personnel is going to be largely and increasingly dependent on your ability to be seen to perform in this. Some of the electronic companies that I know would just say, that's our number one audience, it's an internal audience. If we don't have these things in place, we will not get the best and brightest and our competition will. And I think, you know, I know that mining, one of the big issues is around labor force. Well, we've had a talent crisis already, even before all becoming super important to the next generation. We have a ton to learn from the tech tech industry in particular. How do the big companies bring in the best talent? It's by paying attention to what the next generation, that's going to be your leaders of tomorrow, want to see? And And that's around purpose, that's around sustainability performance. And I I remember Microsoft was probably the first big one in the headlines where they did some incredible stuff around their energy and the article was very clear: we did this following internal pressure from our workforce. Period. Yup. And you look at the universities and, um, you know, we do some talks in different, different, uh, engineering schools and the mining industry, or the mining engineering folks are always in high competition with the others and said, how can we talk about these values in a different way that brings these, these, you know, tons of engineering students that are running through and get them re-interested in us. And the more we do that, you know, the better our, our, our companies will be the faster we will be able to accelerate. So there's, I think there's a range there. You know, the cost of community conflict is, is immense. And, um, Daniel Frank has done a piece that talks about you're sort of quantifying net present value loss from things that are essentially related to waste pollution and social disruption and it's in the order of, uh, you know, uh, I think it was $10 million a week.

Yeah. Yeah. I can be even higher than that in a lot of studies. It's wild. I used it a lot in my training and my pitches. It's like, if you are are questioning how much spend on on your ESG initiatives, just look at the real cost of conflict. There's plenty of data in this industry. It'll cost you millions at date in some cases.

Yeah. And the, and you know, I've talked to some of the people involved with IRMA and they said, that's our number one driver, it really is there. And I think the circularity thing is, again, a systems approach, which the good news is it's not just another hair shirt you wear. It's actually focused on economic value, as well as social and ecological value. It's designed to generate more value throughout the supply chain. So this is a way of rethinking that to maximize value while solving for these other kind of liabilities and costs. So, when we start thinking more holistically about that from an economic point of view, I think we'll, we'll get access to a whole different set of,

I know you advocate for total transformation, right? Not just like incremental harm reduction and I want to ask you, what is your ultimate vision for circular mining? Or, or for a circular mine-site, what does that look like for you?

Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think part of the, the rationale for that idea of transformation, is that we can't sort of incrementally get ourselves out of this crisis. It's got a, we know that we can slow down. We know we can do less, but unless we really really think rethink our approach to the economic values then, um, and had, they relate to the real external costs of doing business, then we will fail and that can happen. And so, um, but then the upside of it is also that, that, you know, the studies I've seen is that small level investments get to small level returns. The deeper you go into the systems, the more you completely commit to them, the higher than value return is on these things. And then the more they become possible because you're creating these, these, uh, demand loops that come back at you as well. And I think we're seeing that starting to happen now, and that's, that's pretty good, exciting. Um, but I think, yeah, coming back to that question, I mean, it'll play out in different ways because, you know, depending on the commodity, you know, you might be a low value, high volume commodity, or it might be high value, low volume. And so those mine-sites will look differently. And it's also like in Canada, whether you're doing remotely in the far North, or whether you're in one of these great industrial hubs like Sudbury or, or Trail, there will be different scenarios that you will be able to play out by the virtue of the support, the infrastructure of the markets and the technology that you're dealing with. So, yeah, there's no sort of one vision, but, um, you know, I, I see no reason why we shouldn't have carbon-positive sites, right? Um, that, that we should be using these industrial sites as generators of, of that, um, that sort of different, uh, form of energy. You know, I certainly see, um, the idea of the, the mine-site at the center of supply chains, not at the beginning of them and seeing that as, you know, the good news is, you know, it's not always people asking for the mine-site, the mine-site can be asking of others and see themselves as the center of a process. So, I mean, I think that's a fundamental view, your responsibilities go up and down the supply chain and need to be, and both create potential value, credential efficiencies, and, and, um, and, and, um, innovations. Um, And then, yeah, I think that, um, we're going to see people in different companies who are benefiting from these complete closed loops. And we will start to see, you know, just as the energy companies are now, you know, seeing themselves as energy companies, not oil companies. And they realize that there's huge transitions that can, um, if they become part of, you know, it won't be for all companies. Again, you're going to see a range of actors, but some super high efficiency, small operations that are, um, you know, actively sort of financed and partnering on rare earths will be one component of it. So you've got, um, a zero footprint, small-scale mine. And then you will have these fully integrated companies that are working directly with the Teslas and, and others to ensure that that everybody's doing sort of their area of expertise to the absolute optimum. So, I think there'll be, it'll be an interesting constellation of challenges and, and technologies, but I would like to see us as Canadians investing heavily in the, in that range and where we've got things like these hubs, I come back to the sort of, the industrial ecology hubs in these areas. These can be huge, um, value global labs for generating these solutions and exporting those solutions and, and accelerating them around the globe. So we've got a lot of expertise. We've got some beautiful examples where we could really make that in and of itself a priority. And some of this work is underway, but the government should be involved. Supply chains, citizens should be involved in this because everybody's going to benefit.

Yes, yes absolutely. So today, who do you think is like most on their their way to really getting there? Who's making meaningful steps that the the rest of the industry could be looking to, join forces with, or to imitate, or at the very least to learn from? You mentioned a few great examples already.

Yeah, no, I think it's interesting because I'm aware of a number of things that are underway that are not made public yet, um, for a variety of reasons that, um, you know, they're either not sure if it's a hundred percent ready or, you know, there might be some elements. And so I think we're seeing, tip of the iceberg might be a little bit strong, but I think there's a lot going on under the surface right now that is about to be made public. You know, there are, Anglo-American has been, has chosen to be leaders. They've chosen to be very public about a lot of what they're doing because you know, partly it's their brand, partly it's just their culture. Right. But I know that Rio Tinto is very, um, very ambitious in this space and has a lot of work going on. I mentioned the smelting side of it, but there's a lot more that is going on and I'm hoping that they will be talking more about that in the future. I mean, BHP, another one is Teck is, uh, is been working on a circularity strategy for some time and I expect to see that out more explicitly, shortly. And then Arcelor, and Arcelor is kind of a fascinating example.

Yeah, like 30% of their steel is already from scrap, for example, like they're way ahead of the game.

Yeah. And they have, you're talking about a fully integrated supply chain, right? From the iron ore to the coal to, well, they're not mining coal, I don't think themselves, but the iron ore is there. And, on the one hand basically catalyzed responsible steel to look at full supply chain stuff, but they're in that all the way through. There, there have been a very, um, very creative and, uh, ambitious member of the IRMA organization for some time. And I think they, the other reason that Arcelor is so important is just that steel is like the vast, vast, vast majority of materials on the planet of all the metals go into steel production just by, as, as you know. So we've got to solve for steel.

Yeah, no, I think there's a great thing to be doing on steel, to be focusing on steel, a lot of reasons to do it. Of course it brings in a lot of other metals as well, but, um, in Canada there is a great opportunity to double down on that. And there's, there's clearly, the markets are evolving fast on that, so yeah, there's, there's um, um, but I'm hoping, another example, just, uh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Agnico Eagle who are working on...

I was like, is he going to talk about Agnico?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they did a small case study for us, for the World Circular Economy Forum, but I really liked the way they're thinking from the, you know, the mine site efficiencies through to the regeneration of natural systems. You have to have mine sites in the right places in order to take advantage of some of these things. But if you do have them, you know, um, like in Quebec and these other things, then you have the ability and arguably the responsibility to really fully implement these sorts of strategies. And I know that's, that's a part of their thinking. They're doing a lot of interesting things, but, uh, but the circularity stuff, I was really pleasantly surprised to see just how far they are, both conceptually and in a practical level.

brilliant. Well, I forward to seeing some of the details emerge in the coming months, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we're going to, there's going to be, from what I can see, there's going to be a bit of a torrent around this area in the next couple of years.

Yeah. And what about other industries? So, you know, when it comes to sustainability and innovation, we know that mining lags a fair bit. What are are other industries you think we could learn something from?

Well, I mean, there are different element of the process of circularity that, um, maybe could be selectively chosen from others because I don't think any one industry has really surged forward in any mass way, but forestry certainly is, is, uh, um, you know, you look at some of the Scandinavian forest companies in particular who thought really deeply on, on the energy side, on, on the natural systems side and on the product side and an incredible amount of innovation on, on, uh, value capture, repurposing and up-purposing. And, um, so I think there's, there's good lessons to be learned in, in the forest sector. And a lot of, again, a lot of the innovation that's going on is below the surface. It's available. But it's not something we talk about or frame in circular ways, but there's some lot of really interesting system innovation, product innovation that's happened there that I think we could learn from. But I mentioned, you know, even like in the chemical industry and the manufacturing industries in Japan and India and others, um, you know, when I first started becoming aware of these issues around circularity several years ago, what was already happening within those kinds of industrial ecology subsystems nationally was just mind boggling and, and the kinds of, of service versus product kind of offerings on, on chemicals, for example, different kinds of equipments and others was just things that I just could only fantasize about. So there's a lot of good examples of industrial systems through to the others. Um, I mean, food is catching up quickly. I don't know... I mean, the, the interesting thing about food is that it's got such a, a human and, and retailer side to it different than a lot of the, the mining side. But, um, but it's still looking at that, but I would look at forestry and some of the, um, industrial and manufacturing operations that are already, as you said, the automotive industry is just moving at light speed on this, and they're fully committed. You know, they're doubling down on all of their things. So we should be thinking about, you know, how they're using metals, how we could help them use metals better, how some of the design they're doing with alloys and other things could be done in a way that would be more complimentary to the extraction and smelting systems that we have here. Those are all the kinds of design questions. It's reasonable to involve the metals companies in them more actively, so that we could really get the most out of these and then start to design sort of the mines and the smelters of the future to meet those needs in a, in a better way.

So when, um, when we're looking at potential areas where we can learn lessons from others, I was made aware of these, um, sort of largely manufacturing, um, chemical processing, other, other, um, large scale initiatives in Japan and in India, for example, where they'd taken an industrial ecology approach and deliberately brought together, um, and connected through, um, a series of both information, service, supply, and different forms of innovation that allowed them to

run some, what previously were very hazardous and wasteful kinds of both manufacturing and processing, dealing with hazardous chemicals and a variety of other things, into closed-loop systems that were able to generate, well, first, stop generating waste and harm, and also significantly increase the value of both jobs and, you know, services and products that were, that became byproducts of these kinds of hubs. So I think there are examples out there where high degrees of circularity have been brought in. So much opportunity.

So, speaking of opportunity, uh, when you look inside the industry, what do you think are some of our greatest opportunities and strengths that we can leverage in this journey?

Well, you know, you and I've talked about this before, but one of the things that I find really interesting as I've worked in, in and around the industry for almost 30 years now, is that, um, you know, although people like to say, and it's true, that there's a lot of inertia in the industry, it doesn't move quickly. And partly that's because these are long-term mine sites that last for a long time, and there's only so much you can do in a quick day. But on the other hand, you know, I found it really heartening and really fascinating that the industry has this ability to problem-solve in ways that is, you know, without precedent. You know, finding these needles in these geological haystacks and literally moving mountains, and there aren't a lot of serious mistakes made in that way. But problem-solving, the industry does better, and they're forced to innovate in really crazy ways. So I'm always, um, you know, sometimes I need reminding my industry colleagues to say, uh, you know, what differentiates you is that you are problem solvers under impossible circumstances. And I encourage my NGO friends to say, just put it in the frame of a problem that can be solved, and they'll solve it. Right? And, and when we've seen this happen time and time again, if you just put it in the frame of a complaint, then it's just another thing that has to be on, on the thing. So I think those sorts of things are very important.

Um, you know, I think that, uh, the growing interest in supply chain and the growing involvement in supply chains is, you know, that kind of literacy that's coming in now, as is forced in, I think that's an area that really needs a lot of work to develop those sorts of partnerships, develop that kind of, um, literacy around those, those issues. Certainly is, um, an area that, that, uh, will distinguish leading companies from others. And those who try and stay with their eyes down on the site are going to be, uh, can be challenged. And we've also talked about the embracing of digitization and, um, the ability to move forward in, um, with different kinds of equipment, different kinds of analytics, um, that will really help. And industry has made a lot of progress on that recently, but let's apply it in this direction. So, I mean, those are some of the things that just sort of come to mind, but, yeah. I know you want to say something about the next generation of leadership, as well. If you want to add that.

Well, I mean, I think that's the other, other aspect is that, uh, we are, as we talked about earlier, the, there is a lot of excitement in this potential and the, the repositioning of mining as a contributor to global solutions, as opposed to just the, you know, the provider of raw materials. And I think that is a really exciting prospect that will draw more into the changing of the kinds of boards of directors we have, the kinds of management and leadership we have, and also the kind of, the relationship with technology is going to change a lot about how mine sites play out on the ground. And, um, those are going to be all sort of challenges that are going to require a new, a new kind of thinking. So I think, uh, that evolution will happen pretty, pretty fast. And the more the market and, you know, the investment world rewards that, the faster that that transition will will occur.

Um, but you know, I was, I was talking with a company a few years ago, I was asked to address the board of directors on coming challenges and what's the next issue we're going to have to worry about. And I thought long and hard about it. And the answer I came to was sort of surprised me as well. And I said it was governance. Governance is a challenge because you have to be willing to share risk. You have to be willing to listen in very different ways. You have to be willing to think about competencies, core competencies within a company in different ways. And, you know, the way you solve problems has to involve internal and external audiences in ways that it never did before. The way you cooperate with policy and regulatory environments means different kinds of problem-solving, different kinds of things, which require a more open governance model. And, and that comes back to these ideas of partnerships that need to be re-thought to solve the kind of problems we're talking about. These aren't engineering problems. We know that. These are much more than that. Well, they are engineering problems in some cases, but it's much, much, much more than that if we're going to take advantage of the, of the potential values that are, I believe, on order. Absolutely. And requiring soft skills, I think too, that we we haven't historically prized and perhaps haven't cultivated as much as we ought to have in order to be, to be ready for all these challenges and opportunities that we we are now facing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's absolutely true. And we're seeing this, you know, um, one of the most obvious areas is around Indigenous relations and how we're thinking about what's your role in, uh, in a community and what's your understanding of land and how do you, how do you think of risk? How do you think of value? But some really great progress that has been made in different parts of the country around that. So that kind of a rethink, which again, you know, 15 years ago, with a few exceptions, was not possible, now it's normal. So I expect to see that kind of shift in thinking, starting to be applied more broadly to the value chains that we're talking about around circular economy. Absolutely.

So, Alan, you're doing some really stuff, and I'm wondering for folks in the audience who might be a bit younger and interested in what you're talking about, what would your advice to someone who might be interested in positioning their career paths at a similar nexus to yours?

Yeah, that's a good challenge. Because it's been a rather circuitous route for me. But I think, you know, first and foremost, do what you're passionate about. You'll be better at it and you'll be motivated by it. You'll be excellent at it. So don't get a job, get a passion. I think that's, that is essential. And we're seeing that in recruiters and things like that, if a simple set of skills is not good enough, a passion is essential. So follow the thing that you that really turns your crank. The other thing I think that's really important is that, um, in this space, those who have the value of being able to listen carefully across sectors, across cultures, and even in between in companies, I mean, look for that space that brings things together, and ask yourself the question, what problems are we solving for? Yeah, there's a big convening role and you have to either be willing to work with conveners or be a convener yourself, or at least, that's an area of huge growth. But I, you know, I start pretty much every meeting and every project by asking myself what problems are we solving for? Because those problems are diverse, people bringing diverse perspectives in. And if you start with that mindset of what problems we're solving for, then you'll start to think differently about how you go about business, how you create innovations and never assume, you know, that the problem you're thinking you're solving for is the one that, that really needs to be pursued. So it's a bit of a mindset thing. And I think that's as important as anything else. I mean, I, um, I don't have any significant academic degrees, so it's not expertise from an academic nature that brings me here. It's experience. I spent five years up North, um, you know, working in, in, you know, challenging situations up there. Just keep throwing myself into new challenges. And that's all I could advise is just take on new challenges and be passionate about them and listen really, really carefully to what people are really trying to solve for, because that assumption is one of the things I see constantly missed and it's a problem. Do you really understand the problem? That's right. And, and often the job that you get is not the job you're really applying for, that's happening two or three things down the way. So again, be prepared to be surprised, you know, and, uh, keep your eyes open.

So Alan, when you think about the future of mining and its role in the circular economy, what are you most excited about and what are you afraid of?

Well, the thing that worries me is that people will stick to an incremental efficiency gains view and not embrace a more full systems approach. Um, and that will squander valuable time on tweaking a few things and bragging a lot about it, as opposed to getting down to disrupting a lot of the supply chains and being actively challenging others who are challenging the industry. You know, it's going to be, it's going to be a very different set of relationships and, you know, it certainly it started and there's, there's good examples out there, but I think there's a lot of folks who are still kind of hoping this thing passes and we can get back to the mine. So, so I think, um, the idea of incrementalism and a focus simply on efficiency would be a real loss. And I believe companies who do that will suffer, you know, lost opportunities.

But in terms of excitement, well, I mean, it is really, really interesting to watch. If you look at the low-carbon or the clean energy future, and, and the embracing of that supply in a way that links the imperative for clean energy, with the imperative for responsible mining, and then that, you know, that, that brings with it a lot of new allies, it brings with it a lot of new imperatives in markets and in the past, you know, whether it's, you know, jewelry or, you know, luxury automobiles or other things, you know, the, the imperative for change and the embracing of, of reforms to be part of new markets is not been, it's been a bit boutique in a way, you know, and that's a nice thing to do if you're working with those companies, but really the rest of us are just, yeah, yeah, exactly. Whereas this, this is such a game changer. So I think that, um, the ability for leadership to embrace the, the, um, the contribution they need to make, knowing that they're going to have to be part of this future, knowing that that future has to be integrated for low-carbon and zero waste in order to meet the critical supply chain. So I just think that, um, political moment where there's a fundamental rethink, and more active partnership, as opposed to sort of a defensive approach, which I've seen in the past a fair bit, that's what I'm looking forward to the most. And I, you know, I've talked to a number of people in industry who see that and, and who are quite willing to embrace it, but, um, there's a lot more sort of cultural work to be done to go beyond that, uh, more, more broadly. Uh, but I do think that's a very critical moment. And the companies that, that embrace that moment are going to lead the way are going to, you know, are going to see considerable value and they will draw investment, they will draw market, they will draw talent and, and watching that process unfold is going to be.... Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that that's a lovely answer and it flows so much into my next question, which is, you know, the show is called Prospecting Purpose. I want to ask you what purpose means to you for this industry, particularly with a lens to circularity? What is our role in tackling humanity's grand challenges and really shaping a more sustainable future?

Right, yeah, I mean, purpose more broadly is sort of like meaningful activity taken on with deliberate strategy to achieve multiple values, social, ecological, and economic. So you really want to optimize those, but it has to be meaningful at those levels and, and deliberate and thorough in its execution. And I think, so companies that do that will have this high value efficiency approach and, um, and we'll gain benefits both internally and externally. We started off in the construction industry and others around energy efficiency. And we thought we were being ambitious. We were so surprised by how much greater the values were once we started going in and we tripped over new innovations and things that, that, you know, they, they were so effective that we could only have dreamt of them before; we wouldn't have talked about them out loud. So we just said, be prepared to be surprised around this stuff, because the more you invest in it, the greater the value will happen. The more it will unlock. And I think not that there's not going to be a lot of challenges and costs along the way, but I think that that view of embracing purpose will yield benefits and outcomes that are well beyond what we can anticipate now. And, uh, that's the exciting part of it. And there's, there's examples out there. So I think with this industry, whether it's solving the energy problems that need to happen internally or becoming, you know, much more effective, um, delivers of this value, um, you know, whether it's in Africa or in Europe, um, I think that there's a great ways in which the, the, you know, the durable nature of the products, the kind of innovations we can bring, will be able to realize an incredible amount of value at the social and economic level. All of that, and I think the, you know, at the heart of the industry, the, the being able to be recognized as an essential part of well, the sustainable future is something that everybody wants to hear, but right now is not yet part of the narrative, at least not more broadly. And I think that is the potential that will bring with it a lot of other attractors and both economic and social values, too.

Perfect. Well, that's all for today's episode. This is Liz Freele on Prospecting Purpose. Thank you for joining us and thank you so much, Alan, also for being with us today.

Thanks, Liz, it's been a great conversation and you've stimulated a lot of thinking for me and thinking in some new directions, too. If you want to learn more, check out the show notes for links on all that we covered today. See you next time!