Sustainability Indicators and Indices in Mining: A Critical Approach

Abstract

This study aims to deepen the discussion on sustainability mining using existing indices and indicators, and investigate the development of indices and indicators specifically for Brazil. This research is driven by the need to measure and understand sustainability in mining, and to derive solutions and alternatives for minimizing adverse impacts. An exhaustive literature review of international peer-reviewed academic articles published over the past 47 years was performed. An overview of the relevant literature was developed via a bibliometric approach, using VOSviewer. Incomplete areas, related to building a mining index structure that is able to measure and understand the sustainability of mining and enterprise management, were observed. We found that it is unnecessary to develop other sustainability indicators for mining, since the existing indicators are abundant, comprehensive and flexible for application in different regions and mineral substances. However, we still need to develop new sustainability indices that can assess this issue.