Cross-cutting panel: Responsible mining, value and investment chains for minerals for the transition, and the role of corporate sustainability due diligence and investors’ influence 

The transition to low-greenhouse-gas (GHG) economies generates a huge demand for minerals for solar power panels, wind turbines and batteries for electric vehicles and other energy storage. However, mining is also associated with harmful environmental impacts, poor labour conditions and strained community relations. These sustainability challenges, along with other factors, are spurring calls and plans for pushing the resource frontier from land-based mining into the oceans by developing deep-sea mining. Such mining, in turn, may cause risks to the eco-system of which we understand very little so far. 

On that complex backdrop, this panel explores the inter-relationship between responsible transition-related mining and mineral value chains, corporate sustainability due diligence, and pressure from institutional investors. Institutional investors have important roles to play as they are called upon to finance low-GHG energy production and the required access to minerals.   

Panelists:  

• Joel Frijhoff, Sustainable Supply Chain Manager and Programme Lead, Ørsted 

• Rasmus Windfeld, Head of Media Relations/External Communication, FLSmidth 

• Roya Amanda Zarrehparvar Høvsgaard, Senior Advisor – Business & Human Rights, DanChurchAid 

• Dr. João Bettencourt, ocean scientist, Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen  

• Troels Børrild, Head of Responsible Investments, AkademikerPension 

Introduction and moderation by Professor Karin Buhmann, Dept of Management, Society & Communication, Copenhagen Business School 

This cross-cutting panel will engage with several themes from the overall list for the 2024 Green Business Forum, in particular 

• Energy and natural resources 

• Regulation 

• Leadership 

• Global perspectives 

• Green Investments and finance. 

The session’s panel is comprised of Danish organizations that have taken a leadership role in the provision of low-GHG energy, exploring and addressing adverse social or environmental impacts associated with terrestrial (land-based) mining practices, including through corporate sustainability due diligence and investors’ influence; and researchers who will explain some fundamental aspects, dilemmas and knowledge-gaps surrounding deep-sea mining. The panel is moderated by Professor Karin Buhmann (Department of Management, Society and Communication, CBS), who was recently awarded a Carlsberg Semper Ardens grant for the five-year research project ‘Frontiers of natural resource and sustainability governance for a just energy transition’ to explore issues informing the panel.