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Ethical Dimensions of Mining Industry

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Ethical Dimensions of Mining Industry
Ethical dimensions of sustainable development and their relevance to
Organisations: A case study of Coltan Mining Industry
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Introduction
Sustainability and its use in enhancement of a sustainable development has become a major concern in the world economy. Many international documents including Agenda 21 on ethics highlights how governments and corporate bodies may achieve sustainable development. One of the strategies suggested by the document is ethical responsibility of business which ensures that organisations pursue development while at the same time protecting the environment. Due to emerging concepts of global democracy, civil society, citizenship and governance in their global perspective; ethics has become an important means which involves individual and organisational commitment to protect the environment adequately. This leads to sustainability which is a positive value in development. Ethics involves respecting the interests of all and protecting the interests of the global environment so as to promote a sustainable development.
This paper proposes that practices result in sustainable development in the economy through the maintenance and enhancement of a sustainable environment. It will identify various ethical dimensions of sustainable development; the various ethical issues that influence sustainable development. In order to achieve this, the paper will use a case study of coltan mining industry. Coltan is a dull metallic ore from which the mineral components of tantalum and niobium are extracted. Tantalum is use to manufacture tantalum capacitors which are used in some electronic products. Australia is the leading coltan mining country of the world. I have chosen Coltan mining as the case study industry because it is one of the activities which affect the environment. The environment is the main component of the global economy whose sustainability has a direct impact on the sustainability


References: list Diaz-Struck, E. and Poliszuk, J. (2012). Venezuela emerges as new source of ‘conflict minerals’ iWatch News (the Center for Public Integrity) 4 March 2012. Accessed on April 22, 2013 from http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/03/04/8288/venezuela-emerges- new-source-conflict-minerals. Melcher, F., Sitnikova, M. Graupner, T., Martin, N., Oberthür, T. Henjes-Kunst, F. Gäbler, E., Gerdes, A., Brätz, H. Davis, D., and Stijn Dewaele (2008). “Fingerprinting of conflict minerals: columbite-tantalite (“coltan”) ores”, SGA News, 23(1), 7-13. Nest, M. (2011) Coltan. Polity Press: Cambridge, UK. United Nations (2001). Security Council condemns illegal exploitation of Democratic Republic of Congo’s natural resources. Press release, UN. 3 May 2001. Accessed on April 22, 2012 from http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sc7057.doc.htm.
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