Geotechnical News • December 2017
35
GEO-INTEREST
Seeing the full project life-cycle
A particularly important challenge
plagues the mining industry. Figure 2
shows the mine life cycle by phases
and level of activity. Note the lower
time line plot. Until the late 1960s,
little attention was given by com-
panies or governments beyond the
operations phase. In the 1970s, closure
came into the industry and regulators
radar. Only about the year 2000 was
the importance of the post-closure
phase recognized. Note also the box
on the upper right which lists the time
horizons of typical concern for various
interests and how they vary signifi-
cantly.
Very few interests see and address the
mine life cycle as a “whole” continu-
ing process. Within a company, explo-
ration, construction, operation, closure
and post-closure are undertaken by
different teams of employees. Within
government, a whole-project regula-
tory perspective simply doesn’t exist.
And amongst civil society organiza-
tions, almost always the focus is on
a crisis or a single-point issue (like
licencing). Only rarely is the idea of
a full life-cycle used as the basis of
design courses in academia. Lack-
ing such integrative thinking, it is not
surprising that mine designs are weak
on long-term integration. Though
ideas of design for closure were first
introduced by leading edge thinkers in
the 1980s, design and implementation
for closure is only now entering the
mainstream of thinking.
Actions for the Geotechnical
Engineer
In summary, contemporary society
needs the commodities produced by
mining but carries little understanding
of what it takes to produce those com-
modities. At the same time, society
continues to call for an industry that
seeks and attains a positive contribu-
tion to both human and ecosystem
well-being.
In fact, what we find is an industry
that:
1. consists of many components with
companies that are tiny to huge
and characterized by a broad varia-
tion in objectives, interests and
behaviours;
2. operates across many cultures, but
does not always demonstrate effec-
tive intercultural communications;
3. is often (but not always) distrusted
and criticized for taking too much,
giving too little, and expressing
good intentions while not follow-
ing through with performance on
the ground;
4. is regulated by a system of gov-
ernance that is equally complex,
disjointed, and not carrying the
respect of either industry or the
public.
In the high-level maze described
above, what does this mean for the
geotechnical engineer and geoscientist
in terms of their day-to-day practice?
The following five concrete actions
will contribute greatly to strengthening
the alignment between society’s values
and industry practices.
Action 1. Champion the long term.
Those trained in the geosci-
ences understand natural
process in terms of geologi-
cal time; you understand the
long term and need to be its
champion amongst others
who don’t, be they technical
Figure 1. Spectrum of corporate behaviour. (After John Gadsby (2000),
Hodge 2011; personal communication, ICMM 2012).
Figure 2.The mine project life cycle by activity level; approximate dates when
the mining industry and regulatory perspective expanded to include each
phase; time horizon disconnects between interests. NRTEE, 1993.
