A practical and rigorous approach for the integration of sustainability principles

into the decision-making processes at minerals processing operations

D. Tuazon
a,
, G. Corder
a
, M. Powell
b
, M. Ziemski
c
a
The University of Queensland, Sustainable Minerals Institute, Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Brisbane, Australia
b
The University of Queensland, Sustainable Minerals Institute, Julius Kruttschnitt Minerals Research Centre, Brisbane, Australia
c
The University of Queensland, Sustainable Minerals Institute, WH Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre, Brisbane, Australia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Available online 5 December 2011
Keywords:
Mining
Minerals processing
Sustainable development
Sustainable integration
Environmental
a b s t r a c t
In the mining industry, high-level commitments to adopt sustainability have been made at the corporate
levels of mining companies, but there continue to be problems when attempts are made to adopt these
high-level sustainability aspirations and translate them into appropriate targets and methods at the
more-specic operational level. The integration of sustainability principles into day-to-day mineral pro-
cessing operational decision-making processes has unique challenges that are not addressed adequately
by current tools and methodologies.
A proposed methodology to achieve integration of sustainability at the operational level will direct the
systematic and rigorous identication and qualication of sustainability issues and opportunities in an
operation. The methodology, starting from a sustainability point-of-view rather than an operational one,
guides the identication of process issues (problems) and opportunities by examining the operation,
unit-by-unit, similar to a HAZOP process. Each issue or opportunity is qualied according to its measurabil-
ity, scopes of impact and consequences so that it may be understood fully and the correct engineering prob-
lems are formed.
The methodology has been tested with two case studies at minerals processing operations. At one site,
the methodology identied a dust issue which had considerable business risks (loss of valuable product)
compared to conventional engineering analysis processes. The other site also beneted from using the
methodology as an opportunity to improve the milling circuit between the semi-autogenous grinding
(SAG) mill and otation circuit was identied. The opportunity not only showed a potential to improve
the operational efciency of the units concerned, but also potential improvements in water and energy
(both direct and embodied) efciency. It was important to utilise the holistic approach of the methodology
in the identication of opportunities at this site; the goals of the operation showed a strong coupling
between water and energy issues which would be difcult to overcome using the operations current
organisational model which deals with such issues separately of each other.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In the mining industry, high-level commitments to adopt
sustainability have been made at the corporate levels of mining
companies. The report of the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable
Development (MMSD) Project (started in 1998 and concluded in
2002) states that mineral products are essential to contemporary
societies and economies, but simply meeting market demand for
mineral commodities falls far short of meeting societys expecta-
tions of [the mining] industry (WBCSD and IIED, 2002). The report
continues to emphasise that continuing to operate without heed for
the challenges presented by sustainable development may result in
failing to convince both societies and governments of mining
companies social license to operate in various areas around the
world.
Currently, there is reasonable to excellent uptake of sustainabil-
ity at a corporate and strategic level which is not reected well at
the operational level, where decision-making is mostly exclusively
technicalnancial and time-restricted without regard for broader
sustainability aspects (except for legal compliance). The challenge
for the practising engineer is how to take sustainability principles
and practically apply them in a thorough manner that will result in
operational decisions that not only possess nancial and technical
benets (as currently occurs), but also have broader sustainability
benets.
This paper will initially discuss the level of uptake of sustain-
ability considerations in the minerals industry, and why it is
necessary to consider the difculty of integrating sustainability
at the operational level. This will be followed by a discussion of
0892-6875/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2011.10.017

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 421 464 915.

E-mail address: d.tuazon@smi.uq.edu.au (D. Tuazon).
Minerals Engineering 29 (2012) 6571
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the nature of the problem and what is required to address it, and
nally a discussion of a proposed solution to this problem a
structured sustainability integration methodology including the
current version of the methodology and its development, and the
efforts to verify the validity and usefulness of the methodology
through applied case studies.
2. Sustainability in the mining industry
In the past decade, the mining and minerals industry has come
under tremendous pressure to improve its social, developmental
and environmental performance (WBCSD and IIED, 2002). In many
cases, this has pushed the research and development agenda for
the mining industry in terms of researching new methods, busi-
ness practices and technologies that advance the tenets of sustain-
ability. In particular, the MMSD project represents one of the
largest efforts by the global mining industry to address the imper-
ative of sustainable development and generally reposition itself as
a leader in the implementation of sustainable development princi-
ples into corporate governance, research and development. Sus-
tainability principles come in different forms, but in essence the
mining and minerals industry have a common objective to advance
the contribution that the industry makes to sustainable develop-
ment. The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) 10
Principles (see Table 1) is a typical example of sustainability prin-
ciples that are directly applicable to the mining and minerals
industry (ICMM, 2003). As stated on the ICMM website, these prin-
ciples were based on the issues identied in the MMSD project
and were benchmarked against leading international standards,
including the Rio Declaration, the Global Reporting Initiative, the
Global Compact, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises,
World Bank Operational Guidelines, OECD Convention on Combat-
ing Bribery, International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions
98, 169, 176, and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human
Rights (ICMM, 2003). These principles also align with the Minerals
Council of Australias (MCA) Enduring Value, which provides guid-
ance on the implementation of the ICMM 10 Principles (MCA,
2004). While the ICMM 10 Principles are different to other sustain-
ability principles, such as the Bellagio Principles (IISD, 1997) and
those of the Natural Step (Holmberg and Robert, 2000), there are
common elements that all subscribe to enhanced holistic outcomes
environmentally, socially, economically and ethically. Given the
relevance of the ICMM 10 Principles to the mining and minerals
industry, they were considered to be the most applicable sustain-
ability principles for this study and subsequently were adopted.
However, whilst these are the default principles for this methodol-
ogy, it is possible to modify the methodology to use other princi-
ples. For the remainder of this article, reference to sustainability
principles will mean the ICMM 10 Principles.
The maturity of sustainable development in the minerals indus-
try today has helped changed the perceptions such that mining
companies now take a systems approach to tackling sustainability
(Fiksel, 2006), combined with more effective governance and real-
ising business value.
Although sustainable development in the minerals industry has
developed and matured largely due to the efforts of the MMSD pro-
ject, the integration of sustainable development into operations
has been more difcult. The publicly available literature shows a
high degree of adoption of sustainability at the corporate level;
however, the degree of integration of sustainability at an opera-
tional level is still limited as suggested by the lack of literature
on the topic and from personal communication with employees
who are at the operational level. Moreover, although studies do ex-
ist where operations are starting to integrate common indicators
like energy usage, water usage and carbon dioxide emissions
(Mudd and Diesendorf, 2008; Pokrajcic and Morrison, 2008), it is
now more important to adopt a more holistic view of sustainability
by targeting:
(a) a greater range of sustainability indicators,
(b) consideration of various levels of the mineral production
cycle in order to better understand the origin and effects
of sustainability impacts and benets (in particular, coupled
effects), and
(c) a structured process by which to establish, qualify and under-
stand suchsustainability impacts and benets inorder to bet-
ter utilise them in day-to-day decision-making processes.
Laurence (2010) also contends that there is limited guidance for
putting sustainability frameworks and theory into action on the
ground. Laurence goes on to showthe number of unplanned or pre-
mature closures of mining operations over the 30 year period before
2010 and in a number of cases the primary reason for closure was
linked to some aspect of sustainability other than protability or
efciency. It was suggested that the operation of some of these
mines may have been prolonged through a judicious application
of sustainability principles which takes into account the environ-
ment and community in addition to safety, resource efciency and
economics, although Laurence (2010) does concede that there is
no evidence to suggest that the implementation of sustainable
mining practices may have preventedsome or all of those mine clo-
sures. Laurence (2010), however, did not suggest any mechanisms
for how sustainability could be integrated into mining operations.
3. Development of the sustainability integration methodology
for the operational level
McLellan et al. (2007) discussed a structured methodology for
the measurement and comparison of sustainability benets and im-
pacts of different minerals processing technologies at a researcher
or technology assessment level. The methodology involved a preli-
minary step of selecting appropriate sustainability indicators for
scenario comparison, followed by a two-part quantication step
(a rst step quantication using rawdata, followed by an extrapola-
tion step which estimated the greater impacts or benets based on a
geographical region or longer time scale). This kind of methodology
is useful for comparing the sustainability impacts and benets of
suggested improvement projects, but does not in itself generate
Table 1
Sustainable development principles (10 Principles) of the ICMM (Source: ICMM
(2003)).
The ICMM 10 Principles
1. Implement and maintain ethical business practices and sound systems of
corporate governance
2. Integrate sustainable development considerations within the corporate
decision-making process
3. Uphold fundamental human rights and respect cultures, customs and
values in dealings with employees and others who are affected by our
activities
4. Implement risk management strategies based on valid data and sound
science
5. Seek continual improvement of our health and safety performance
6. Seek continual improvement of our environmental performance
7. Contribute to conservation of biodiversity and integrated approaches to
land use planning
8. Facilitate and encourage responsible product design, use, re-use,
recycling and disposal of our products
9. Contribute to the social, economic and institutional development of the
communities in which we operate
10. Implement effective and transparent engagement, communication and
independently veried reporting arrangements with our stakeholders
66 D. Tuazon et al. / Minerals Engineering 29 (2012) 6571
any initiatives that wouldimprove the sustainability credentials of a
project. In addition, it is more important in an operational context to
link sustainability benets and impacts back to their effects on cor-
porate goals and objectives; the methodology in McLellan et al.
(2007) does not specically provide for this.
The methodology described in this paper aims to achieve sus-
tainability integration into minerals processing operations by over-
coming the limitations of previous methodologies as typied by
McLellan et al. (2007) by having key steps which:
(a) guide the identication of process issues or opportunities,
(b) ensure that identied issues or opportunities are fully qual-
ied and understood so that the engineering problems are
properly framed, and
(c) guide the prioritisation and organisation of issues/opportu-
nities and initiatives to address them, including the formula-
tion of a decision support case for each distinct initiative
which highlights not only the traditional business and oper-
ational benets and costs, but also sustainability benets
and costs.
The methodology is outlined graphically in Fig. 1.
The key difference between this methodology and a conven-
tional engineering decision process is the focus of this methodology
is froma sustainability point-of-viewrather than a traditional tech-
nicalnancial one. The steps of the methodology are described in
more detail in the following sub-sections of the paper.
The sustainability integration methodology utilises indicators
which are based on information which are familiar and relevant
to personnel at the operational level. These commonly include di-
rect energy usage (viz. electricity), embodied energy (e.g. through
the use of steel balls in comminution), carbon dioxide emissions,
water usage and discharge, dust, minor elements emissions, re-
agent use and other amenity aspects like noise or vibration. These
indicators have both environmental and social impacts. Indicator
selection is based on corporate goals (including operational, busi-
ness and sustainability goals) and pre-determined risks (e.g. due
to geography, climate, prohibitive costs, previous history of known
issues, etc.). The directed inclusion of sustainability indicators
makes for a more agile process compared to more comprehensive
methods such as life cycle assessment, which can require prohibi-
tive amounts of time and effort for implementation at the time-
imperative operational level.
3.1. Goal and scope denition
The rst step of the methodology is to dene the operational
and sustainability goals of the operation. Operational goals include
typical production targets such as throughput, production, etc.
whereas sustainability goals are usually constraints, such as water
use or energy draw limits, but can also be aspirational targets (e.g.
as set out by corporate sustainability reports from the previous
reporting period) and importantly are based on the corporate sus-
tainability principles or policies.
The scope of study will usually encompass the entire minerals
processing facility and its constituent unit operations, where the
primary input to the facility will be mined ore and the primary out-
put will be mineral concentrate (sent to downstream renement).
Fig. 1. Components of the proposed sustainability integration methodology.
D. Tuazon et al. / Minerals Engineering 29 (2012) 6571 67
3.2. Identication of sustainability issues or opportunities
The identication of issues and opportunities is similar to a HAZ-
OP style study. The identication process proceeds on examining
each part of the operation on a unit-by-unit basis, guided by a list
of sustainability indicators or potential what-if scenarios. Not only
are personnel at the operational level are comfortable with this ap-
proach but it also provides a thorough basis for investigating and
identifying sustainability issues of the units and their connections.
The process considers all units, including those which may not
have any signicant physio-chemical function (e.g. stockpiles or
sumps). This is important because sustainability issues may mani-
fest themselves within such units, however they may only be dis-
covered reactively rather than proactively.
3.3. Qualication of sustainability issues
Once sustainability issues have been identied, it is important
to qualify the issues in order to fully understand what is required
to address them. Too often, identied issues are elicited and solu-
tions quickly found without full consideration of how the issue can
be further prevented or even optimally addressed. An example of
this is increasing the ball load in a semi-autogenous grinding
(SAG) mill to improve grinding. While obtaining the correct grind
size is obviously a critical performance measure, increasing the ball
load is typically undertaken without the broader considerations,
such as the additional expense in ball consumption, a decrease in
energy efciency as well as an increase in ne gangue material that
could cause issues downstream in otation or in tailings handling
and/or storage. Solving a problem in one part of the operation can
create a new problem or problems elsewhere unless a holistic ap-
proach is adopted.
The qualication process involves qualifying an issue with three
important aspects:
Scope of impact. This refers to the physicalconceptual levels
that are being affected by an issue (and to what extent). This
concept comes from a similar discussion in Cote et al. (2007)
and is designed to allow a clearer understanding of the extents
of impacts from an issue (which may be beyond simply the
location of the source of the impact), provide a means of dis-
cerning between which issues should be addressed rst and at
which levels should action be sought after rst. The scope of
an impact can consist of one or more of the following levels:
Unit operational level, i.e. affecting a unit operation.
Plant area level, i.e. a major section of a processing plant
which consists of several interconnected units (such as the
milling circuit).
Operational level, i.e. the entire plant site.
Along the value chain, either upstream or downstream from
the plant operation.
External, which describes other scopes peripheral to the
main value chain about the operation. Examples of impacted
external scopes include local communities, local support
industries (e.g. electricity suppliers or steel mill that supplies
mill grinding media) or other affected external stakeholders.
Measurability. The ability to measure and track the extent of an
issue is very important before options can be proposed to
address an issue. For example, if an issue related to a shortage
of water supply to a unit operation is raised, it would be difcult
to consider options to address this issue if there is no way to
actually measure the water balance on the unit. Likewise if there
are social issues (for example, potential health impacts to work-
ers or local communities, lack of appropriate skills or potential
for local supporting enterprises), measuring the magnitude of
their impacts on the operation, even in a qualitative sense, is
important. If an issue cannot be easily measured then the imme-
diate action to address an issue would be to consider how the
extent of the issue can be monitored, e.g. installing ow meters
and conducting measurements in the water example, or con-
ducting surveys/interviews or establishing programmes for the
social issue examples related to health, skills or enterprises. An
insistence on verifying measurability also improves the general
ability of the site to accurately report on sustainability
indicators.
Consequence analysis. In addition to considering the scope of
impact, it is important to consider the possible consequences
from an issue if it is not addressed. These consequences may
be operational, business and/or sustainability related. Examples
of possible consequences could be:
Economic loss due to unprocessed product.
Operational instability or loss of efciency.
Increase in social or legal risk, such as disagreement from
local communities or regulators and potentially loss of
social licence to operate (Thomson and Joyce, 2008).
The full consequences of an issue do not need to be investigated
at this stage; they should provide a quick indication on the priority
of addressing an issue.
3.4. Problem formation and options generation
The important process of qualifying each issue builds the deci-
sion support case for addressing those issues as well as a means of
prioritising the issues in an order to be addressed. Issues can also
be examined to determine whether there are sets of more than
one issue which have direct effects (or coupling) on one another
(whether those effects be complementing or opposing), as well
as identifying the overall key sustainability areas which are being
affected (for example, water which covers the environmental as-
pects of sustainability, energy the environmental and economic as-
pects of sustainability, and dust the environmental and social
aspects of sustainability). Coupling between issues may be within
a single sustainability indicator area, or there may be issue-cou-
pling within a similar scope but across different sustainability indi-
cators. It is important to recognise and highlight any couplings
between issues, because the resolution of one issue may be offset
negatively by a resulting exacerbation of another issue (or even
in the manifestation of a new issue). For example, replacing a
SAG mill with high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) may result in
energy savings; however dust risks associated with this change
need to be considered including the impact on workers health
and/or the need for energy intensive equipment to extract the dust
from the atmosphere.
The options generation process is greatly helped by the quali-
cation process as generated options address the root causes of is-
sues rather than the impacts.
Once a list of options are generated to address issues, a further
prioritisation step on the list of options should be carried out, as
well as a check that the list of generated options is consistent.
The benets and costs of each of these options can then be laid
out in a full (traditional) business case with a supporting sustain-
ability case. By eliciting the sustainability benets and costs, it is
also possible to draw inferences where the sustainability benets
may improve the business case (or reduce business and opera-
tional risk). The sustainability benets are typically reported
against the corporate sustainability framework and organised un-
der its headline components. For example, an operation which
adopts the Five Capitals (Forum for the Future, 2005) as its organ-
ising sustainability framework might arrange its sustainability
case similar to the sample list of benets or costs as shown in
Table 2.
68 D. Tuazon et al. / Minerals Engineering 29 (2012) 6571
4. Development and verication of methodology through case
studies
The most appropriate way to verify the proposed methodology
for sustainability integration is to test it on industrial case studies.
For that reason, it is necessary for the academic development of the
methodology to be coupled with case study work at minerals pro-
cessing sites around the world.
The aims of conducting these case studies were twofold:
To test out the methodology and identify areas for enhance-
ment through the development of sub-processes, heuristics
and other guiding aspects.
To attempt to identify new opportunities or initiatives that
strongly align with sustainability principles and satisfy the
operational performance.
The key difference here is that methodology seeks to elicit
opportunities on a sustainability basis rst (that is, ones that will
assist in meeting sustainability goals and aspirations) and then
determine those that meet standard nancial objectives and oper-
ational performance criteria. This is different to the current, usual
approach where the converse occurs and sustainability aspects are
only considered afterwards. This will ensure that an operation
makes the best possible contribution to sustainable development
while still achieving key operating goals.
To date, two case studies have been conducted. To maintain cli-
ent condentiality, specic information on each case study has not
been included.
4.1. Case study 1
The rst case study was conducted over 2 weeks in October
2009 at a mining and mineral processing operation that produces
a high value product. The site was constrained in terms of its water
and energy usage, in particular because it was in competition over
the use of these resources with the local community. There had
been several incidents where this competition over energy and
water usage between the site and the community had impacts
on the operations performance as well as affecting the social good-
will between the site and community. As a consequence, environ-
mental and social sustainability issues had the potential to affect
the performance of the operation, and this, in effect, was the prob-
lem the site was facing, despite the fact that the site was not in
direct breach of any stipulated environmental limits or regulations.
The main aim of the case study was to identify a list of the crit-
ical improvement opportunities at the site to reduce the environ-
mental impact of the operation thereby relieving competition for
resources with the local community. A secondary objective was
to investigate how sustainability principles could be made relevant
to the day-to-day activities at a mineral processing operation.
The systematic and rigorous methodology (as it was at the time
of this case study) was applied in order to identify sustainability is-
sues in the operation which could then provide the basis for
improvement opportunities. The main sources of information and
observations to support the identication of issues included:
Data from annual and other status reports, online databases and
sustainability indicator tracking data.
Interviews held with site personnel at both the mining and con-
centrator levels.
Visual observations through plant tours and photographs.
Flowsheet analysis (on a unit operation by unit operation basis)
to identify possible sustainability risks.
The result of this case study was an identication of three main
sustainability issues related to water accounting, energy efciency
and dust risk.
The water accounting issue highlighted deciencies in the mea-
surement of water ows on the site, as well as a poor understanding
of the real water needs of different sections of the operation. The
resulting deciency meant that dealing with water supply issues
was mostly reactive (i.e. if a section required more water, then more
water was used without questioning why or exactly how much
water was required). As a result of highlighting this deciency, the
sitemovedtoimplement awater accountingsystemas well as inves-
tigate problems in water measurement (e.g. faulty owmeters). The
implementation of a consistent and reliable water accounting sys-
tem was crucial before the site could start to consider water ef-
ciency initiatives and their possible implementation.
The issue with energy efciency highlighted a need for better
communication between the mining and concentration business
units, as different operational regimes for ores with differing char-
acteristics were required in order to improve the overall energy
efciency of the operation. Through improved communication
and an evaluation of energy efciency across the entire operation
rather than optimising efciency separately within the separate
processing areas (e.g. comminution, otation, etc.), the operation
would be able to better control its electricity consumption and
thus achieve better performance and resilience (e.g. against vary-
ing conditions due to local community electricity demands, sea-
sonality and ore variability).
The most interesting issue identied in the investigation was a
dust issue that would not normally be identied using traditional
analysis processes, yet had notable environmental, social and
nancial consequences. The output stream of the primary crusher
is dropped from an A-frame onto a stockpile which then proceeds
to the comminution stages. When this stream dropped from the
Table 2
Example of sustainability, business and operational benets and costs organised according to the Five Capitals framework (Forum for the Future, 2005).
Economic (business) Infrastructure (operational) Environmental Human Social
Unit costs (e.g. based on
throughput)
New or removed unit
processes
Water use (amount,
intensity)
Safety (employees,
community)
Amenity (dust, noise, vibration, visual)
Local economy investment Raw materials Electrical energy Health and well-being Reputation (current, medium term or legacy;
perceived or actual)
Capital costs (e.g. for new
units)
Reagents Embodied energy Emergency
preparedness
Community engagement
Throughput Transport (vehicles,
conveyors, etc.)
Fugitive emissions Training/education Life of operation
Resilience to risks Carbon dioxide
emissions
Operation
controllability
Job creation/preservation
Effects on
rehabilitation
Legislative compliance
Tailings
D. Tuazon et al. / Minerals Engineering 29 (2012) 6571 69
top of the A-frame, a noticeable amount of dust is blown from the
stream and away from the stockpile. This dust carries nes which
were likely to be high grade and would require little comminution
effort.
Previous solutions often dealt with the external-to-site dust
impacts (testing has only conrmed legal compliance) rather than
trying to establish root causes (i.e. where is the dust coming from,
and why). In addition, it was found that this issue manifested itself
within units which were situated between business units/process-
ing areas, or were perceived to not harbour any signicant issues or
risks. However, when the issue was traced back to the dust blow-
ing away from the stockpile, an approximation of the valuable
material in the nes carried by the dust was calculated. An approx-
imate calculation of the losses of product amounted to about
US$500 per hour. This shows the difference between evaluating
the extent of the root cause of an issue rather than simply looking
at the extent of the impact. The evaluation of the consequences
revealed business risks which ultimately prompted the operation
to investigate the problem further and consider solutions to
addressing the dust problem.
The main outcomes from this case study for the methodology
included:
An improved issue identication process which covered not only
all the units inanoperation, but alsothe interfaces betweenthese
units (i.e. interconnectingstreams, stockpiles, sumps, tanks, etc.).
The holistic sustainability approach of the methodology was
validated as sustainability issues with notable business and
operational risks were able to be identied that would not
normally be identied through the traditional techno-economic
analysis approaches adopted by the site. In addition, the site
was able to nd opportunities that were much better aligned
with sustainability principles and would not have occurred by
simply complying with environmental limits and regulations.
4.2. Case study 2
The second and most recent case study undertaken to test the
methodology involved a 1-week visit in December 2010. Similar to
the rst case study, this mining and processing operation was con-
strained in terms of water and energy usage and has been in compe-
titionwiththe local communityfor water resources. Thesepressures
resulting from a competition for resources, compounded by unfa-
vourable climatic conditions, had twice almost resulted in the site
having to close prematurely. As a consequence, the lack of resilience
of the site to operate harmoniously withinthe community as well as
deal withvariabilityinclimate andore was exposed, andfurther this
had implications on any intended expansions of the operation.
The biggest motivation for identication of sustainability issues
and opportunities at this operation was the long term plan to
increase throughput without increasing the overall available
energy or water draw. Sustainability drivers from both an environ-
mental perspective and a local community perspective in terms of
gaining a social licence to expand were paramount. The key aim of
this case study was to identify initiatives that would reduce water
and energy usage per tonne of product and thereby help achieve
the sites long term plan as well as reduce competition for valuable
resources with local community, in particular other industries such
as agriculture.
A similar process was followed to the rst case study with the
aim of identifying sustainability issues and opportunities at site,
particularly in an effort to reinforce the technical outcomes of a
scoping visit earlier in the year. The objective of that visit was to
identify a number of technical operational improvement projects,
but it was recognised that there was further scope for the investi-
gation of broader sustainability issues and the benets they could
deliver to the operation.
Key issues relating to embodied energy, dust management and,
most importantly, water management were identied. Water man-
agement is currently the biggest issue on site mainly due to ad-
verse rainfall events that have affected the operations area for
the last 2 years, ranging from little rainfall and an almost drying-
up of water reserves, to excessive rainfall and an appreciable risk
of water storages overowing. However, what was most interest-
ing from this case study was the identication of a major opportu-
nity in one of the sites milling circuits to improve both water and
energy efciencies.
The opportunity is depicted schematically in Fig. 2. It shows the
output of the SAG mill sump to be fed into the cyclone with lower
percent solids (from 5055% w/w solids to approx. 30% w/w solids)
to improve hydrocyclone separation efciency. The cyclone over-
ow is then thickened with a newly installed high-rate thickener
which enters rougher otation with approximately 40% w/w solids.
The thickener water is sent back to the SAG trommel to minimise
the amount of additional process water required.
The improved classication decreases the amount of material
below grind size returning to the grinding circuit thereby increas-
ing the circuits energy efciency (e.g. in the ball mill, the predicted
improvement was estimated at 1015% based on energy consumed
per tonne of throughput). Since the solids rate entering otation is
now higher, otation performance is improved and a higher recov-
ery will be expected.
In addition to the technical improvements that may result from
this opportunity, there were other operational, sustainability and
nancial benets that were raised, such as:
Lower costs of processing materials, i.e. steel media (which was
found to be the second highest operational cost besides direct
energy consumption).
Increased circuit controllability, especially with respect to con-
trolling solids rate/content between the SAG mill output and
otation circuit input.
Fig. 2. Schematic depicting the proposed change to the milling circuit in Case study 2.
70 D. Tuazon et al. / Minerals Engineering 29 (2012) 6571
The identication of this major opportunity arose as a result of
understanding one of the operations key future goals (namely
maintaining current water draw) and the coupling implications it
had on issues and factors related to water and energy. Since issues
related to water and energy at the site were managed by separate
personnel, it may have been difcult for the site to identify such
highly coupled issues and opportunities. In addition, the identied
opportunity was not the result of an immediate problem that the
site was experiencing, but rather seeded by thinking in terms of a
future scenario (i.e. that the amount of water and energy available
was the same as that of the current operation, yet the efciency of
the circuit was higher).
This case study offered additional supporting evidence that the
methodology can deliver better outcomes (business, operational
and sustainability) than current business-as-usual approaches to
operational improvement which may not be based on or include a
consideration of sustainability factors. The case study also contrib-
uted to the improvement of the methodology to not only identify is-
sues (or problems) within an operation but also opportunities for
improvement based on aspirational scenarios.
5. Conclusion
Although the understanding of sustainability principles and
adoption at the corporate (strategic) level at mining companies is
quite mature, there still exist difculties in the understanding
and integration of sustainability principles at the operational level
during day-to-day activities. The key to enabling this integration is
a structured methodology to guide the identication of sustainabil-
ity issues at minerals processing operations. Issues are identied
through a unit-by-unit analysis of the operation with consideration
to both:
The sustainability indicator type which is being affected by par-
ticular issues.
The potential for issues to be identied as immediately appar-
ent or manifesting only through the consideration of potential
functional deviation scenarios.
Identied issues must be qualied in order to fully understand
the real causes of issues as well as the case for addressing an issue;
this is done in order to avoid reactive solutions which tend to treat
the impacts as a result of an issue. When an issue is fully qualied
and able to be monitored, the problem to be solved becomes
clearer and solutions can be then more effectively generated to ad-
dress the issue.
Two case studies have been conducted in order to verify that
the methodology is able to guide the identication of sustainability
issues that embodied notable sustainability and business risks,
particularly those issues, risks and opportunities that could not
be identied with business-as-usual processes. In both cases, the
methodology was able to identify issues which could not be iden-
tied through traditional analysis processes. In one of the case
studies, the methodologys holistic sustainability approach was
key to identifying a major improvement opportunity which would
improve (amongst other factors) the operations water and energy
efciency; this opportunity would have been difcult to identify
with the operations current organisational model which handles
energy and water issues separately.
Acknowledgements
The work in this article forms part of a PhD which is supported
by funding from The University of Queensland and the Co-opera-
tive Research Centre for Sustainable Resource Processing. Addi-
tional funding for case study work was provided by The
University of Queensland Graduate School Research Travel Grant.
The main author would also like to acknowledge the contributions
of Dr. Glen Corder, Prof. Malcolm Powell and Dr. Marcin Ziemski of
the Sustainable Minerals Institute from The University of Queens-
land. The author would also like to thank the mining companies in-
volved in case studies for their support in this research project.
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