Takeaways: IIPWG December 2024
Items excerpted from the JDecember 2024 Investors & Indigenous Peoples Working Group (IIPWG) Newsletter. The next IIPWG strategy call takes place Thursday, January 16, 2025, 11:00 am ET. Learn more about IIPWG.
Indigenous Peoples’ Perspectives on the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative
Indigenous Peoples advocate that the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative (CMSI) draft proposal for a simplified global responsible mining standard must meaningfully integrate feedback from Indigenous Peoples and uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights. CMSI's draft proposal was insufficient in a number of ways, including significant gaps in Indigenous Peoples’ rights and FPIC, failure to align with ICMM commitments and meaningfully incorporate Indigenous Peoples' feedback, over reliance on mitigation strategies, inadequate reporting standards on Indigenous Peoples, and a governance structure that disproportionately empowers industry actors and limits voices of Indigenous Peoples and civil society organizations.
Among gaps, FPIC is not integrated at the foundational performance level and is handled as a procedural process, rather than an internationally recognized right of Indigenous Peoples. In addition, the interdependence between performance areas, such as cultural heritage, biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, is ambiguous – respect for Indigenous Peoples rights’ must be integrated across performance areas.
While the first public consultation closed on December 16, CMSI plans to publish and address the feedback received in 2025, as well as host a second public consultation. Further resources:
The Risks Posed by the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative: a Civil Society Briefing for Automakers and other Downstream Purchasers, a briefing written and endorsed by civil society groups, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights organizations; and
Investor Letter Opportunity: Sustainalytics Reduces Human Rights Coverage and Potential Impacts to Indigenous Peoples Reporting
Sustainalytics, an ESG data provider and commonly used tool to assess corporate ESG practices and risks, will no longer be covering human rights issues in "contiguous territorial disputes." Investors are expressing concern about the rollback, citing the loss of crucial data to inform their analyses of material risks and corporate human rights commitments. This includes implications for corporate reporting on Indigenous Peoples, as Sustainalytics lists geographical areas that are home to Indigenous communities.
Given the push for human rights disclosure to include Indigenous Peoples, the rollback erodes progress on corporate reporting on Indigenous Peoples issues. Investors are also concerned that products on the market lack sufficient risk due diligence for Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
IIPWG participants discussed submitting an investor letter to Sustainalytics; contact AnnaMae Dziallo annamae.dziallo@colorado.edu for more information.
Gwich'in Nation Reaffirms Commitment to Protect the Arctic Refuge after Second Oil and Gas Lease Sale Announced
Following announcement of the second oil and gas lease sale of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, set for January 9, 2025, the Gwich’in Nation reaffirmed their longstanding opposition to oil and gas development in Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge, which they call Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit (“The Sacred Place Where Life Begins").
The Gwich’in Steering Committee is calling on banks and insurance companies to not fund or underwrite drilling projects in the Arctic Refuge. Kristen Moreland, Executive Director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, remarked, “Our way of life, our food security, and our spiritual well-being is directly tied to the health of the caribou, and the health of this irreplaceable landscape.”
The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act mandated two lease sales for potential oil and gas exploration in the Arctic refuge. The first lease sale in January 2021 was widely considered a failure and generated a fraction of the projected revenue. The second lease sale will open 400,000 acres in the Arctic Refuge for oil and gas drilling.