Public Citizen Launches Campaign Against Mining Sector Greenwashing at NYCW
NEW YORK — Public Citizen today launched a public campaign against the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative, a scheme to greenwash the mining industry. The campaign, which included a video truck and a consumer petition, is part of New York Climate Week.
Mining companies have an extensive track record of environmental damage, human rights abuses, violence and corruption. In an attempt to greenwash these practices to consumers, governments, and investors, the mining industry is trying to create a new set of voluntary rules, written by the very industry insiders who have spent decades polluting around the globe, called the Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative. If successful, hundreds of mining companies around the world will be able to “certify” their projects as responsible without meaningfully addressing environmental impacts and human rights abuses.
Public Citizen’s Senior EV Supply Chain Policy Advocate Chelsea Hodgkins said:
“We cannot expect the industry responsible for causing destruction to write its own rules and credit itself as following them. The Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative is a clear conflict of interest and a dangerous platform for greenwashing. Today’s actions push back against this corporate power-grab and fight for stronger protections for people across the country and around the world. “If the CMSI is successful, hundreds of mining companies could try to ‘certify’ their projects as responsible without meaningfully addressing impacts and harms to communities and workers.”
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