The Consolidated Mining Standard Must Keep Digging

NRGI recognizes that the second and final consultation draft of the CMSI represents an improvement on the first draft produced in 2024. However, several significant issues remain that will undermine the CMSI’s ability to serve as a credible global benchmark for responsible mining practices. We raised the following concerns as part of our submission to the recently closed second consultation.

On governance

• Second consultation. The decision not to open the governance model to a second round of consultation limits transparency and meaningful participation on arguably the most important aspect of the CMSI. The ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Sustainability Systems states that scheme owners should undertake at least two rounds of public input on initial standards development (clause 6.5).
• Multi-stakeholder participation. The August 2025 governance model is not genuinely multi-stakeholder. Although it includes measures to ensure that board members bring a diversity of perspectives, it restricts the ability of these board members to act as representatives of stakeholder constituencies.
  • Stakeholder groups cannot select their own members, which is fundamental to the credibility of board members serving in a stakeholder capacity.
  • Fiduciary duties clearly state that board members’ “primary fiduciary duty is to the Legal Entity as a whole and not to the stakeholder group on behalf of which that Director may have been appointed.” (see governance model, p.16)
• Limiting public discussion on the CMSI. The requirement that board members "speak with a unified voice when representing the Legal Entity to the community" (see governance model, p.16) limits their ability to engage openly about concerns they have with the standard and its implementation. It would limit public oversight and accountability on responsible mining practices by constraining the speech of important stakeholder groups, including Indigenous Peoples, impacted communities and consumer facing companies—or force groups to not participate in the process in order to maintain their ability to speak freely about the CMSI.
• National Panels. The provision for National Panels, with the ability to set country-specific interpretation for implementers and assurance providers, has potential to improve the governance, implementation and assurance of the CMSI, but there is a risk that, without the necessary safeguards, national panels could become the means to dilute CMSI requirements in specific geographies. We are particularly alarmed by the suggestion that national mining associations could convene National Panels. (See governance model, p.14.) Given their industry-oriented mandates, this could raise questions about the neutrality of these panels, and risks undermining the credibility of the standard at the national level.

In a genuinely multistakeholder process, representing the perspectives of a stakeholder group need not be at odds with upholding the best interests of the Legal Entity. All references to multi-stakeholder participation should therefore be removed (see standard, p.3; assurance process, p.4; and governance model p.4) unless the governance model is revised to enable the independent and credible involvement of stakeholder representatives.

These shortcomings limit the ability of stakeholder groups to engage in CMSI governance, reducing the potential for the CMSI to self-correct and evolve as problems are discovered, as circumstances change and as responsible mining practices evolve. Importantly, they also mean that the CMSI does not meet the multi-stakeholder governance requirements that some governments are placing on verification schemes, such as those of the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, which states that multi-stakeholder governance requires a mandate “which confirms or supports the involvement of the multi-stakeholder representatives of that certification scheme”

On the assurance process

• Statement of findings. A credible assurance process must provide clear, consistent and detailed information at the level of specific requirements, including explanations for why specific requirements do not apply. Without this, communities, civil society, investors and consumer companies cannot understand how conclusions were reached and whether the standard is being applied consistently. Requiring the publication of a more thorough Statement of Findings in this way would significantly improve accountability and confidence in the assurance system. (See section 4.5)
• Corrective actions. The assurance process does not clearly state whether the corrective actions identified by assurance providers will be made public. Making these documents public, either alongside or as part of the statement of findings, would provide valuable information that rights holders, investors and value chain companies can use to make decisions around projects. It also would allow these stakeholders to help hold companies accountable to corrective actions that they must meet. (See section 4.3.5)  
• Requirements to meet leading practice. As part of the statement of findings, assurance providers are able to provide companies with information about requirements they need to meet the leading practice level of the CMSI. However, this is only required for companies that indicate that they are working to achieve the leading practice level. As part of the drive towards continual improvement, this should not be something that companies opt in to. Rather, all companies that meet the good practice level should automatically receive information about the requirements they need to meet to attain leading practice. To help companies meet these requirements, they should be published alongside or as part of the statement of findings. (See section 4.3.5)
• Level of assurance required. The assurance process does not specify the level of assurance that assurance providers are expected to meet in carrying out their role. This needs to be made clear. To reduce risks of “greenwashing” and potential damage to the CMSI’s credibility,  the standard should require reasonable assurance.

On the claims policy

• A stronger path to leading practice. The standard does not include sufficient measures to encourage leading practice. Attainment of leading practice will not be acknowledged in the most visible parts of the standard, such as the aggregate scores, and will instead be buried in each site’s assured claims report. Companies achieving leading practice deserve greater acknowledgement in their aggregate scores. This could be achieved by:
  • Publishing information of leading practice indicators achieved in or alongside the aggregate score.
  • Adding a leading practice performance claim
  • Including a separate score in addition to the aggregate score that is calculated as the percentage of applicable requirements met in all three performance levels.
• Understanding where facilities fall short. Facilities may make an initial performance claim if 80 percent of applicable performance areas meet a good practice level. While the site’s assured claims report will show which areas the site has not met the good practice standard in, this is not very visible. Given that some investors and value chain companies may have specific policy redlines (e.g. Child Labor or FPIC), information on which performance areas have not met good practice should be published prominently to aid fast assessment of specific facilities, for example in a note alongside the facility’s aggregate score.

On the standard

In addition to specific comments provided directly in the document, we highlight the following high-level comments:

• Equivalency map. The credibility of the CMSI rests on the assertion that the good practice level “is a level of practice in line with industry standards and international norms, frameworks and guidelines,”  but it does not specify which. This makes it hard for all stakeholders—but particularly investors and value chain companies—to understand whether alignment with the CMSI is equivalent to meeting other international norms, frameworks and guidelines. The CMSI should publish an equivalency mapping detailing all the norms, frameworks and guidelines it claims to meet.
• Performance area 1: corporate requirements. These issues are essential for preventing corruption, ensuring fair resource management and enabling communities to participate meaningfully in decisions that affect them.
  • Applicability. The language on applicability states that while the requirements in this performance area are intended to be implemented and assured at the corporate level, it also states that some such as the disclosure of mineral revenues can be implemented an assured at the facility level. This lack of clarity adds a level of ambiguity that will make it hard for assurance providers and facilities to know exactly what should be done to achieve these requirements. We believe a more appropriate approach would be to specify clearly for each requirement the level at which the requirement should be assured. For some issues, including payments to government, contract disclosure and beneficial ownership, the best approach would be to have two requirements for each issue—one looking at the company-wide approach and a second determining whether the policy is being applied properly at the facility level.
  • Contract transparency.
    • The CMSI should reflect the reality that publication of contracts entered into prior to 1 January 2021 is now common practice. In a recent analysis of the ICMM contract transparency commitment, we found that the overwhelming majority of contracts disclosed were voluntary disclosures of pre-2021 contracts. This should be included as part of good practice. If some stakeholders are concerned that such a requirement would result in the disclosure of information that is not appropriate for public consumption, a next-best approach could be to require publication with a caveat that companies could redact all or parts of these contracts, as long as they provide a specific justification for this approach. The CGD-convened Principles on Commercial Transparency in Public Contracts outlines principles that companies could follow to employ this approach.
    • Publication of new contracts is what the IMF calls an established international norm similar to project-level payment disclosures. Like project-level disclosure, this should be under “toward good practice”. Additionally, defining “new contracts” requires setting a date after which contracts must be disclosed. By not specifying a date, the CMSI undermines the 1 January 2021 reference established by the EITI requirement and the ICMM commitment. At a minimum, and for consistency across standards and to avoid confusion, we think it would be better to use the same date across all standards.
  • Beneficial ownership. While we welcome the inclusion of beneficial ownership reporting as a long-standing requirement of the EITI standard, it should be included as a good practice rather than as a leading practice.
• Performance area 2: business integrity.
  • Stabilization. The standard should include a provision on stabilization. This could draw from the OECD Guiding Principles on Durable Extractive Contracts. These principles state that companies should commit to not make stabilization agreements on non-fiscal issues including, but not limited to, climate change, environmental protection, human rights or labor rights. This is important because it allows governments to continue aligning regulations with internationally recognized rules. Note that the guiding principles acknowledge that there may be situations where fiscal issues can be subject to stabilization. But in these instances, the investor should demonstrate a legitimate commercial need—and if that’s the case, the time and scope should be limited, with the option for review.
  • Responsible taxation. Provisions should be added on responsible tax. Following the OECD BEP’s project and numerous offshore scandals, several principles of fair taxation have emerged. Failure to incorporate these into the standard would leave the CMSI falling short of globally accepted norms and standards, including the World Gold Council’s Responsible Gold Mining Principles, Governance section C,1.6., the B Team responsible tax principles, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and the OECD Guiding principles on Durable Extractive Contracts.