Responsible Leadership in the Just Transitions
This book investigates how to achieve 'just transitions’ to greener and more digitised economies with proper access to remedy for victims of harm. It comes in the background of acceleration of energy and digital transitions, and growing calls for these transitions to be “just”, by mitigating the adverse impacts of human activity on nature and protecting and respecting the rights of people and promoting equality and justice.
The volume explores what good remedy looks like in mineral value chains. It shines a light on remedy as a critical, yet underexplored, component of growing minerals supply in the context of international and national frameworks for responsible business conduct and sustainable mineral production. Diverse case studies from multiple jurisdictions cover a suite of ESG issues (e.g., tailings dam breaches, cultural desecration, gender-based violence, Indigenous rights violations, artisanal and small-scale mining) and guide the reader on what effective remedy looks like in practice, what barriers persist, and how enterprises, governments, and civil society can work together to overcome them.
The chapters are organised into three sections according to the mechanisms – legal, institutional and grassroots – that are commonly deployed to address harm. Readers of this book will benefit from grounded insights into the lived realities of those affected by mineral extraction and processing in their quest for remediation of harms, from improved understanding of the promise and the limitations of remedy in practice, and from insights into how remedy is conceptualised, implemented and contested across different geographies and minerals. The conclusions present a set of key principles for making remedy more effective in mineral value chains, and make recommendations to a broad set of minerals sector actors on how to improve remedy and ensure minerals contribute to a positive legacy to future generations.
Fabiana Di Lorenzo is a responsible-sourcing expert specialising in the minerals and metals sector. She works with companies along the full value chain, governments, international organisations, and industry initiatives to strengthen responsible sourcing practices, and build more resilient and sustainable mineral value chains. Fabiana holds a PhD in Law from King’s College London in the UK, an MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the same institution, an MA in International Relations from the University of Turin (Italy) and she holds the CDI.D™ designation from Corporate Directors International.
Victoria Gronwald is an expert on illicit financial flows, responsible mineral supply chains and international cooperation against tax evasion. She has worked in consulting for the private and public sector as well as in international organisations and NGOs. Victoria has a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an LLM from Lancaster University and an MA from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.
Estelle Levin has been working in natural resources sustainability since 2000, beginning her career in shipbroking, gorilla conservation and international development. Today she builds post-extractivist, regenerative and equitable minerals value chains to make business and society more sustainable. In 2010 Estelle founded B CorpTM advisory firm, Levin Sources, which has helped 160+ clients mine, trade, source, finance and regulate minerals more responsibly through 330+ projects on 160+ minerals in 90+ countries since 2010. Estelle has held over 30 voluntary roles for multistakeholder and policy initiatives; most recently she served as Member of the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, Commissioner for the Global Investor Commission for Mining 2030 and Member of Women in Mining UK’s Policy & Research Committee. As a result of her work, Estelle has been recognised as a 100 Global Inspirational Woman in Mining (2020) and an African Mining Review's "Mining Elite in Africa" (2024). Estelle holds an MA in Geography from the University of Edinburgh, an MA in Geography from the University of British Columbia, a Certificate and Diploma in Company Direction.