APPLYING HUMANITARIAN ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE IN THE MINING SECTOR TO PROMOTE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

The mining sector faces a critical task: meeting the demands of the energy transition while addressing numerous social and environmental issues that have delayed or halted projects. Overcoming these hurdles will require strategies that integrate the perspectives of all stakeholders involved in or affected by mining projects, especially those who are marginalized, to find opportunities and limitations for creating shared value. However, most practitioners have entered the mining workforce without the interdisciplinary tools needed for this intricate responsibility. Humanitarian Engineering and Science (HES) offers a way forward. HES equips students and practitioners with the interdisciplinary tools necessary to embrace the complexity of our current global challenges, including the increasing mining demands of the energy transition. Drawing from the extensive body of research from the HES program at the Colorado School of Mines, this presentation will explore how HES can be applied in the mining sector to work across disciplines to promote social responsibility and sustainable community development. I will show how these tools have already been leveraged to better understand and respond to diverse mining contexts and how the mining industry can learn from these lessons and adopt them in their efforts toward progress and justice.