Sustainable mining is no longer sustainable–the oil sands verbal slip affects us all

The front page of Fort McMurray Today carries a long article on the call by the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that Royal Dutch Shell’s use of the word “sustainable” to describe their oil sands projects is both misleading and ambiguous.  Here is a link to another good web report on the finding.   They say:

The ASA ruling says: “Because ‘sustainable’ was an ambiguous term, and because we had not seen data that showed how Shell was effectively managing carbon emissions from its oil sands projects in order to limit climate change, we concluded that on this point the ad was misleading.”

Shell countered:

Shell’s sustainability report states that it relies upon the definition of “sustainable development” as outlined by the Brundtland Commission, a European Commission body, in 1987, which includes economic and social developments as well as protecting the environment. It claimed this definition would be understood by Financial Times’ readers. The ASA disagreed, because the emphasis of its advertisement was on environmental sustainability and managing climate change.

I have long railed against the word “sustainable” as it is bandied about in mining circles.  I recognize that the academic definition includes the idea of using resources in such a way that we do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.  But the fact is that in common parlance, “sustainable” means “keep on doing it indefinitely.”  It has always struck me as a travesty of language that like the Alice we can define things to mean what we want them to mean.  I have always considered use of the term “sustainable” in the context of mining to be mere whitewash.

Fort McMurray Today highlights the complexity of the meaning of the word sustainable:

“We did feel there was a problem with that ad,” Matt Wilson, ASA spokesman told Today this morning.  He explained the “overarching message” being implied was investment in future technologies to limit carbon emissions would help secure a sustainable future, an implied message of environmental sustainability readers would also interpret. Wilson added that with the ad talking about reducing emissions for a sustainable future, it conveyed a message of environmental sustainability. However, noted Wilson, “Shell’s definition was made on a broader kind of platform, which is about social and economic sustainability, but in the context of the ad, when you’re talking about environmental issues, we thought it was really referring to environmental sustainability. Therefore it was ambiguous and misleading. That’s how we sort of arrived at our decision.”

I suspect the outcome of this finding is profound.  I submit that from now on we will no longer be bombarded with reports from mining companies that have titles like “Sustainability Report.”  Some poor academics are going to have to revise their notes for talks they repeatedly trot out at conferences and in the lecture hall.  And this is a good thing, for by now the term is thoroughly discredited. 

Some mining folk are using the term “responsible mining.”  It is not as green, but is it a lot more honest.   Problem is what one person thinks is responsible behavior may not be what another person thinks is responsible.  For example, consider the old clash of cultures inherent in a London mining company’s claim that it will mine responsibly in the territory considered sacred by an indigenous tribe.

Stand by.  For this is just the begining of a completely new wave of linguistic and verbal acrobatics as we try to find neutral yet descriptive terms to justify our actions.