Greenbushes: the first Australian mine to adopt IRMA

Greenbushes lithium operation in Western Australia. Credit: Talison Lithium

Perth-based Talison Lithium’s mining and processing operation, Greenbushes, is located south of a small mining town in WA, with which it shares its name. Under different companies, the site has been operational since the early 1980s and today produces around 1.34 million tonnes of lithium concentrates a year. 

The Greenbushes mine has undergone a major expansion in recent years. In 2017–19 it constructed a second large chemical-grade lithium processing plant that doubled production capacity. A third lithium processing plant also started construction in 2023. 

Now, the project, which also has a tailings retreatment facility, is about to embark on another major process. It will be the first Australian mine to undergo an Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) audit – a voluntary standard widely seen as the most rigorous in the world.

IRMA was founded in 2006 by multiple stakeholders but only started doing audits in 2019. Since then, it has garnered a reputation as being different to many other mining environmental social and governance (ESG) standards, of which there are more than 50. 

This is because, unlike other standards, IRMA is equally governed by affected communities, companies that purchase mined materials, investors, labour unions, the mining industry and NGOs. Each of the six groups has two representatives on the standard’s board of directors, meaning they must all agree on what is in the standard and how it is implemented. For example, if two reps from one group vote against something it cannot move forward.

“This means that mining has a very powerful voice in IRMA regarding, for example, what the definition of best practice is and what is considered appropriate accountability, but it doesn’t have more say than any other group,” explains Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the standard.

“It is about not rolling over people; every stakeholder has value in delivering the standard, which can then be trusted across the world,” she adds. 

Furthermore, full audits, often 150-page documents, are published and anyone can contribute to an audit, whether its World Wildlife Fund or a person living near a mine. Boulanger says auditors are active in reaching out to affected groups. 

At the end of an audit, mining operations are not certified but scored based on the more than 20 chapters in the standard. This way, anyone can see how, for example, an operation scores for each chapter, such as protecting water or biodiversity. 

In addition, miners can only become members of IRMA if they have achieved at least a 50% score at one of their mining operations. Large players, like Anglo American, must also commit to a variety of their sites being audited. Anglo American has had eight of its sites audited so far. 

Audits are renewed every three years, with a check in after 18 months. Currently the standard does not ask companies to stop the process if their scores slide because Boulanger says they want companies to stay ‘engaged’ rather than have an excuse to disconnect. 

If a company faces a challenge at a mine site, the mining company can contextualise it, such as the fact a dam might be 40-years old and very different to manage from one that is five years old. 

The IMRA standard’s transparency and foundations based on equal engagement has seen it garner support from many industry stakeholders. 

Alex Kopp, a senior campaigner at Global Witness says that while the NGO would like to see better legislation regulating the industry, strong voluntary initiatives can play a role in making minerals extraction more responsible. 

“There are many initiatives that set weak and vague standards, which probably serve more the purpose of greenwashing than effectively addressing problems. IRMA is the strongest voluntary standard related to minerals extraction I am aware of,” he says. 

He adds that the shared and equitable governance where each stakeholder has equal power and voting rights as mining companies is “a condition for meaningful and strong standards”.

In comparison, mining industry trade associations including The Copper Mark, the International Council on Mining and Metals and Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) are consulting on their own new ESG programme, called the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative, which aims to simplify current mining standards. However, the fact it is coming from the industry itself has caused concern that it will lack independence. 

“I think mining trade associations can do much to help their members do better, but they are foundationally trade associations where their members and their funding entirely is from the mining industry,” says Boulanger. 

The diversity of the standard has also been popular with end users, the companies buying the minerals. 

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz, former senior director for responsible sourcing at Microsoft, previously said that being able to rely on third-party audit verification to assess how its mined materials are sourced is "incredibly valuable". 

“The wide applicability of IRMA to all mined minerals will allow us to become fluent in one standard, enabling us to objectively compare the performance of all of our mining suppliers,” she added.

Talison’s Greenbushes IRMA audit assessment is currently ongoing. It includes an open pit, four processing facilities, tailings storage facilities, water dams, waste rock storage area, and associated supporting facilities and services. During the assessment the impacts and issues associated with the Greenbushes site will be reviewed, and each facility will be visited. 

A spokesperson for Talison told Mining Technology it decided to volunteer for a third-party independent assessment against the IRMA standard to provide transparent information and enable meaningful dialogue between stakeholders about its operations, achievements and areas for improvement. 

“This decision reflects our desire to uphold the highest standards of environmental and social responsibility and set a new benchmark for transparency in the Australian mining sector,” the spokesperson said. 

“We aim to gain a clear understanding of how our Greenbushes lithium operation measures up against global best practices for responsible mining. This audit will highlight our strengths and help us understand our opportunities.” 

In preparation for the third-party audit at Greenbushes, in 2022, Talison began a self-assessment process to evaluate its performance against the IRMA Standard for Responsible Mining, the spokesperson said. 

Mining companies, having previously been in the background, not household names and distanced from their end customers – carmakers, electronics companies, consumers – are now facing greater scrutiny due to the energy transition and increasing legislation, which is driving a move towards transparency, says Boulanger. 

“Greenbushes is a lithium site; the use of lithium has changed dramatically since the mine was first developed in Australia. Lithium’s role in electric vehicle batteries is creating a whole new sense of its utility and its being called a 'critical mineral' by some,” says Boulanger.

This scarcity or sense of competition has resulted in a shortening of supply chains with end users and those closer to them buying directly from the mine in offtake agreements. Miners are now connected with the likes of Apple and Mercedes, for example, which in turn face an increasing legal and societal obligation to source minerals responsibly. 

Furthermore, with legislation such as the European Due Diligence Act, end users must know their supply chain. 

“There is now a range of different legislation that tells brands to understand their supply chain and to use their positive leverage to help reduce harm in those supply chains – and that is why, increasingly, you have companies like Albemarle Corporation, one of the owners in the Talison project, saying ‘look, our customers are asking for this and that is why we go with that’,” says Boulanger. 

T&E, an advocate for clean transport and energy in Europe, is calling for global projects that either undergo IRMA self-assessment or an IRMA audit to be prioritised for selection as a strategic project under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act – making them eligible for government support. 

There is no suggestion of this in Australia, but the environment of increasing regulation and scrutiny of the mining sector is incentivising the adoption of best practises.

There are now more than 90 mining companies formally registered with IRMA, with more than 100 different sites. Many have started a self-assessment, the purpose of which is to understand their operations and how they can improve them before embarking on an independent audit.

Kopp says IRMA’s first audits will be “important test cases as to whether it can translate its strong standard into effective change on the ground”. 

Boulanger certainly hopes the momentum around responsible sourcing will continue to encourage end users to value mining operations that act responsible and adopt best practices. 

“Most mining companies don’t want to be doing harm, but they may not have had leadership to support them to do more, particularly as sometimes the market doesn't separate responsible players, but only looks at price,” she says. 

She sees IRMA, which is currently getting ready to launch an updated version of its standard, IRMA 2.0, as a place for active dialogue around what is needed for responsible mining, regardless of where a mine operates. 

“I hope that all around the world, there will be best practices and that there will be a market for that for the companies and less division and fear for the communities that host this industry. That would be an incredible success,” Boulanger says.