Engaging the productive sector in the climate debate: codes of sustainable operational practices for FDI (with a view on the mining sector)

Abstract

This Report boldly advocates -within a realist view of the climate debate- a shift in the COP efforts and output. The shift amounts to giving more attention and room to bottom-up agreements, in which the Conference would exert a co-ordinating role; many of its nowadays measures are eventually meaningless, lacking the full engagement of the related actors.Voluntary Codes of Conduct, designed by the different productive sectors themselves, are at the core of the proposal. The Codes set key norms and standards to be followed worldwide, in the daily operations of a relevant group of agents. The approach is simple and reasonably costless and can be tried in areas where sustainability is at risk, due to the interaction of major productive units with manifold environmental variables. A feature of such activities is their intensive participation in foreign direct investment ventures; the extractive industries complex, mining, in particular, is a major exampleThe proposed instrument is no novelty, but the Report sets constraints and principles that tailor it in a new, not yet exploited perspective. It outlines how to do this for mining; carefully describing the steps and precautions to produce a tool that complements and enriches the considerable amount of work already known. The codes follow a flexible and customised structure for answering varied sustainability demands. They can also be a factor for enlarging the scope of CSR instruments, bringing, at the side of traditional dimensions like labour, explicit and modern sustainability practices. The approach must be spread throughout countries and partners, and the gist of its idea explained to as many as possible relevant institutions, firms and stakeholders’ groups. However, this effort is not enough: the Code(s) here envisaged must be registered at the COP, opening a new activity of the Conference as a recipient body for private productive agents’ initiatives.