CRITICAL MINERALSThe Energy Transition Is Affecting Attitudes Towards Mining
A survey finds the growing demand for critical minerals to support renewable energy is increasing public acceptance of mining in Australia. It also highlights that trust is a precious commodity.
Together with the data-science and community engagement company Voconiq, we’ve been conducting the Australian Attitudes toward Mining survey across ten years. In that time, the mining industry has earned more than $2.1 trillion in export revenue, paid $241 billion in wages and $132 billion in company taxes. That equates to 21 per cent of Australia’s economic growth over the decade.
While the economic benefits are clear, community attitudes toward the mining industry are in many cases conflicted.
The latest survey was launched at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Sydney in October. It revealed a significant positive shift in public attitudes toward the industry.
Dr Kieren Moffat is founder and CEO of Voconiq. Kieren worked with us for almost 14 years before community-engagement research firm Voconiq became one of our spinout companies in 2019.
“We see a substantive improvement in community trust in the mining industry and acceptance of its activities,” Kieren says.
The mean trust score was 2.8 in 2014 and 2017. It rose to 3.1 in the 2024 survey, which engaged 6,448 respondents.
“That jump might not look like much, but as a social scientist I can tell you that is a statistically significant increase. Quite a big jump,” Kieren says.
The need for energy transition minerals is growing in volume and urgency. It is more important than ever to bring citizen voices into the conversation about how our national resources are managed. This will help ensure that miners have a robust social license to operate.
Dr Louise Fisher is Science Director and Deputy Director of our Mineral Resources research unit.
“As Australia’s national science agency, we undertake research that supports industry and the Australian community. Adding to this longitudinal data set is very important,” Louise says.
“The growth in trust the survey found is linked to meeting expectations around environmental management and how mining companies engage with communities and their workforce. Trust is very hard to win and sustaining trust has to be taken very seriously.”
Engaging Communities as Mining Expands
“The mining industry in Australia is central to tackling one of the world’s great challenges: the climate emergency,” Kieren says.
“Energy transition minerals are vital to the energy transformation and Australia is well placed to support it. However, the forecast for required minerals is clear: we need significantly more.”
At the same time, many of these energy transition minerals are depleting in grade or becoming harder to access.
