Sustainability in Finland’s extractive industry: Responding to a need for best practice guidelines in early decision making phases

Abstract

Most of the world is in agreement that climate change is indeed real and it remains one of the most crucial unsolved problems in the 21st century. In Finland, much of the anger and blame was placed squarely on the shoulders of the extractive industry after a massive leakage of the gypsum tailings ponds at Talvivaara Mining Co in 2011. The purpose of this research is to uncover the central issues that the Finnish non-energy extractive industry must improve on to become more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. An extensive literature review combined with 20 stakeholder interviews were conducted. The stakeholders are all very highly regarded members in the industry and come from a variety of backgrounds such as government, science/universities, industry, and non-governmental Indigenous organizations. The results of both methods were analysed and combined to create a wholesome list of 10 of the most crucial issues, called themes. The issues/themes that were raised the most in the stakeholder interviews were the need for sustainability to be considered in the exploration phase and that the non-energy extractive industry has lost the trust of stakeholders due to a lack of communication. The literature review also points to these areas as weak spots and insists that social and community engagement techniques must become more effective. These areas can be referred to as leverage points in systems thinking because improving them will have a large impact on the industry as a whole. Other issues include technological improvement, improving biodiversity conservation and protection, and water and tailings management. The study took a participatory research approach by having the interviewees/stakeholders review and make changes throughout the study by means of meetings, phone calls, and emails. During these consultations, several interviewees expressed the need to present the 10 themes in a visually appealing fashion or, they said, many decision makers would not read it. The results section was transcribed into a guidebook along with graphs and figures to create an easy to read document. The stakeholders have all agreed to distribute the guidebook to their contacts. Further research must be conducted with a larger, statistically valid sample size and also to determine how the themes can be best turned into positive actions.