We Need More Metals Than Ever. But at What Cost? | Ep279: Rohitesh Dhawan

Let's stick with you just for a moment and your, that point, that cusp where you joined the organization, because you said that you're a, uh, you're an environmental, you're a sustainability person at heart.

Um, but you were, you were also interested in the ability of your industry, the mining industry, to do good, not just the, its, its actual, its history and its, and its footprint of doing bad.

So your, your take on sustainability was not, "Let's try and stop things." It, it wasn't a kind of a blockers, uh, approach, and that's fascinating.

Talk to me about that, because so many environmentalists, and you know, it's a very valuable role to stop people from doing awful things.

But you didn't- Did you, d-- was that an in, was that your, you always knew you would try and play, in a sense, the positive role, or did that come to you when you came across this organization, had the opportunity to join and lead it?

Look, my training as an economist taught me that the private sector is a hugely powerful actor of influence in the world.

That can be a positive influence, and it can be a negative influence.

But my view of the world tells me that big business, directed in the right way when incentives to do good and do well are both aligned, is one of the best ways to make the world a better place.

I have huge respect for activists and for people that try and stop things and put pressure on the system from the outside.

I don't even think I would be effective at doing that.

But I do think that I have the ability to speak to big business in a way that relates to their incentives and to try and change the system from within.

And that's why I say that ICMM is so unique because it is a body unlike any other in any sector, where the twenty-six, in our case, largest CEOs come together in a shared commitment to make the industry better.

And so for me, I've always wanted to play a role in changing the system from within, and I'm so pleased that there is a community of NGOs and activists out there who recognize that we're not the enemy.

In fact, we are pushing at the same outcome.

They're doing it from the outside, we're doing it from the inside, and we're trying to take everybody along with us.

Yeah.

And you know, there's some history here where, you know, activists were incredibly effective at shutting down the nuclear industry, and now I think it's fair to say most of them have realized that the greater, by far the greater evil was actually climate change.

And so they've, you know, they're, they're now doing, uh, what's known in, I think, Private Eye, the, the, you know, British satirical magazine, as the reverse ferret and having to, having to, um, you know, change tack.

Um, talk to me about the model of the ICMM because you said it was founded by, was it five or six?

Five.

So five mining companies and, um, w-what, how does it operate and how many members have you got now and, and what's the, what's the kind of theory, theory of change that the, the organization pursues?

So today it's twenty-six companies.

We account for over a third of the global mining industry.

We have between us over six hundred and fifty mines, uh, spread across fifty countries.

It's the largest companies in the sector, and it is at a CEO level.