Gold miners must justify environmental impacts, veteran investor says

Gold miners must justify environmental impacts, veteran investor says

The gold mining industry risks being ignored by large pension funds and other investors if it cannot justify the environmental impact of its activities, according to one of the sector’s most influential fund managers.

Speaking at an industry conference on Wednesday, BlackRock’s Evy Hambro said that people could more easily see the need to dig giant holes in the ground to mine energy transition metals such as copper and nickel — but that the case is less clear for gold.

“I think when it comes to other commodities that don’t play that role, it becomes much harder to justify why you’re having to do the digging in the first place,” Hambro said at the Mines and Money conference in central London.

Over the past couple of years, investors have become increasingly focused on environmental, social and governance metrics when deciding what stocks to buy and sell.

Apart from jewellery, gold has few industrial uses, and while the industry is a valuable source of employment and taxes in some of the poorest countries in the world, most of the gold mined today is stored in vaults.

“I think what we’re now starting to see from investors when you’re looking at the resources sector through the ESG