Vision 2040: mining, minerals and innovation

Starting a national conversation about sustainable mineral production. Consultation paper - May 2011

• Institute for Sustainable Futures

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Report image: Vision 2040

13 May 2011This consultation paper aims to engage industry and the community on identifying a sustainable path for the mining industry in Australia and how it can be achieved. 

Australia’s economy is now riding on the trucks, trains and ships that carry our minerals to the international market. But the resources boom we’re now experiencing will not last indefinitely. We need a conversation about how our vast mineral endowment can provide all Australians with sustained benefit over the next 30 years and more.

This discussion should focus on what strategies, innovations or policies might deliver equitable and sustainable benefit from minerals into the future. The issues in this conversation are complex, and open discussion among all stakeholders can help us to reframe problems, find solutions and identify the opportunities change will bring. This document aims to begin this conversation by asking for your input on a vision for a sustainable mining industry in Australia, and how this vision can be achieved.

This work is part of the Minerals Futures Collaboration Cluster (2009- 2012), which unites five university research institutions in collaboration with CSIRO to address the future of sustainability challenges for the mining industry in Australia.

Part of this research aims to answer the following questions:

What should we as Australians be doing with our mineral endowment in the next 30 years to underpin long- term national benefit?

What strategies can deliver on a vision of a minerals industry embedded within a sustainable Australian community in a range of future scenarios?

What technologies should be given priority for research and development?