Sustainability and Responsible Sourcing

LBMA is taking a leading role by creating a coalition of willing partners across the global precious metals industry, with the ultimate mission of positioning precious metals as part of the solution to the sustainability challenges we face.

Responsible Sourcing on the Agenda

Over the last year, LBMA’s Responsible Sourcing agenda has focused on four areas:

1. ARTISANAL SMALL-SCALE MINED (ASM) GOLD AND RECYCLED GOLD

Invest resources to address the governance challenges and market exclusion associated with ASM gold, while also responding to concerns that current definitions of recycled gold support unsubstantiated product claims.

2. PROGRAMME REVIEW AND OVERSIGHT

Reinforce the integrity and credibility of LBMA’s Assurance Programme. This consists of the development of a suite of guidance documents that support Assurance Providers before, during and after their annual engagements with GDL Refiners.

3. CIVIL SOCIETY ENGAGEMENT

Strengthen engagement with civil society partners. The exchanges of views is critical to fostering mutual trust and understanding of each other’s perspectives and play an integral role in informing improvements to the Responsible Sourcing Programme (RSP).

4. VALUE CHAIN ENGAGEMENT

Increase communication with the full spectrum of LBMA stakeholders. LBMA launched the inaugural edition of the Sourcing Advisory to raise awareness of GDL Refiners and Assurance Providers (APs) to ad hoc sourcing threats and vulnerabilities brought to our attention. The Responsible Sourcing team also increased its dialogue with both entities, proactively providing constructive feedback on the quality and LBMA expectations of assurance reports received during in 2024.

LBMA’s core values of leadership, integrity and transparency guide all focus areas of the Strategy. Rather than approaching one focus area at a time, we consider how these core values will both inform and propel action as we build on them each year.

Responsible Gold Guidance

LBMA has always sought to ensure that the Responsible Gold Guidance (RGG) – the 10th iteration of which will be launched in 2025 – remains at the forefront of all emerging challenges and debates related to the governance of the precious metals market.

LBMA can never be complacent to an evolving landscape and new threats; we must maintain our vigilance and continually strive to accomplish more in our efforts to do so. We often recall two foundational principles upon which both the RGG and OECD Guidance are premised: continuous improvement and progressive improvement. The former speaks to the need for industry schemes to never rest on their laurels. And so, with the conclusion of each new iteration of the RGG, we begin the process of identifying further areas of improvement. This commitment to continuous improvement is what keeps the Responsible Sourcing Programme fit for purpose.

ASM Initiative: A Pathway for Legal ASM

LBMA’s ASM Initiative is first and foremost an effort to address the governance challenges to the global legal gold sector posed by the unsupervised, marginalised and criminalised environment within which the industry actors in the ASM sector are unfortunately often forced to operate.

While there is much more to be done, we are confident that the first concrete steps have been taken to promote engagement by GDL Refiners and reverse the avoidance that has hobbled the full economic potential the sector represents for millions of miners and producer countries around the globe.

Intermediate Refiners

LBMA also engaged with several intermediate refiners and aggregators in Ghana, Peru and Tanzania, encouraging them to undergo an assessment process led by the Responsible Mineral Initiative (RMI). Securing RMI’s conformance builds the credibility of prospective intermediate refiners, while providing GDL Refiners with additional comfort that they are dealing with an established and credible supplier.

Recycled Material

This is the second year that data has been submitted against the five recycled categories and so, this year, we have been able to do a direct comparison year-on-year with more granular data on recycled materials. This provides a clearer and more detailed picture of the types of recycled material that GDL Refiners are sourcing.

Previously, recycled materials were grouped under a single category. Disaggregating the data into five categories better captures the nuances within the sector: Unprocessed Recyclable Metals; Melted Recyclable Material; Industrial By-products; Mixed Materials; and Grandfathered Stocks.