Digging deep: Showroom for program results
Digging deep,?is a glimpse into some of the many things that the program has contributed to, helped create or enabled during the 11 years the program has existed.
Our vision is a world-leading mining and mineral producing industry that contributes to a sustainable society. As one of Sweden's strategic innovation programs our efforts have?been towards?innovation capacity, technology development, social?acceptance and qualified personnel. In the coming months, we will share examples, large and small, narrow and broad, where Swedish Mining Innovation and our partners have contribued the vision. Short and sweet, easy to understand, gathered under one of these three headings:
DIGGING DEEP: INNOVATION DRIVERS
Accelerating innovation with strategic agendas
Metals and minerals are crucial for achieving the Agenda 2030 goals, and Sweden is pioneering the development of sustainability in the mining and metals sector. To secure our position – and show global leadership – Swedish mining companies, technology providers, universities and research institutes have jointly developed strategic roadmaps for key challenges such as innovation, biodiversity and competence.
The aim of sector-wide roadmaps is to jointly define the challenges, objectives and activities that are most critical and describe how they will strengthen the competitiveness of a sustainable and responsible mineral and metal-producing industry in Sweden. Swedish Mining Innovation has supported and co-authored roadmaps for:
Research & Innovation
The purpose of this national research and innovation agenda is to bring research and innovation needs of the Swedish mineral and mining industry, the metal extraction industry and equipment suppliers to the fore. The agenda is revised every third year and was well received when last published in 2022:
"Research and innovation collaboration are crucial to accelerate the adjustment that is necessary for the future. This agenda is a good example of the broad support and unity that is characteristic of Sweden as an innovation country and which means that we are at the forefront internationally" - Cecilia Sj?berg, Head of Industrial Development at Vinnova, the Swedish Innovation Authority
Biodiversity
Mining with Nature, the first national strategic roadmap for biodiversity in the mining sector was published in 2020, led by environmental experts at Ecogain in partnership with Boliden , LKAB , Svemin and Swedish Mining Innovation . ?
– The Swedish mining industry is considered the most sustainable in the world, thanks to efficient production methods, lower emissions than the industry in comparable countries and a good working environment. Sweden has a responsibility and a unique opportunity to show global leadership, says Katarina Nilsson , expert research and innovation at Svemin , the mining and metals trade association.
Competence
The mining sector is in the middle of a dual digital and green transformation of enormous proportions – meanwhile for it to be successful, attracting the right skills to the sector is critical. The agenda for competence (Kompetensf?rdplan), published by Svemin , Jernkontoret , Industriarbetsgivarna and Swedish Mining Innovation provides an overview of urgent priorities and recommendations for industry, government and educational stakeholders.
Impact and future
Sweden is one of the world’s leading nations in mining innovation. The mining companies are world leading in terms of productivity, both underground and at the surface, thanks in large to strong providers of?technology and systems. There is a longstanding tradition of collaboration between mining companies, technology and systems providers, research institutes and academia. This collaboration has laid the foundations for strong innovation and successful, internationally competitive companies.
The roadmaps enable stakeholders to become even more aligned in driving innovation strategically and solving fundamental challenges to meet the needs of a sustainable society.
"Access to sustainably produced metals and minerals is crucial in order to create a sustainable society. They are needed to build new infrastructure, batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and other hardware to enable green electricity supply, electrification and digitization. The agenda encapsulates the most important challenges to solve, and creates a clear direction for research and innovation work going forward" - Charlotte Andersson , program director Swedish Mining Innovation .
Swedish Mining Innovation has played a pivotal role by enabling and facilitating the development and continuous revisions of these roadmaps, as well as translating them into real innovation iniatives and projects through calls and other activities organized by the program office.
DIGGING DEEP: SOCIETAL SUSTAINABILITY
Re-calculating growth with the holistic value model
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Making mining more sustainable requires new perspectives on investments and financial decision-making. Swedish Mining Innovation has funded an initiative to resolve this, by developing the holistic value model.
With a new model, the industry can both show that ESG (environmental, social, governance) factors have a real impact on investment decisions, but also that by considering these factors new types of financially relevant short and long-term risks and opportunities will be included, and hence improve financial transparency and performance.
The issue – lack of transparency and information
The project is initiated and led by Nordic Strategy Partners along with a cluster of international industry stakeholders.
- While ESG factors have an immediate impact on financial results, they are not typically included in financial modelling. By changing this, mining companies can make more informed investment decisions on all their projects where positive and negative ESG-effects are directly included, Niklas Gr?nberg from Nordic Strategy Partners explains.
A new perspective on profitability and growth
To achieve this, the project team has assessed and bench-marked over 200 global standards, models and frameworks within the area of ESG and financial modelling. Industry players and key organizations in Sweden, Europe and Canada have contributed with insights.?
- We’re overwhelmed by the response on this project. All over the world and across industries, organizations recognize the need for a tool that integrates ESG-factors, but so far, no-one has a solution. A key challenge, but also an opportinity, is how quickly this field is evolving – it’s been crucial to continuously align our progress with new frameworks and even regulatory changes, Gr?nberg continues.
Impact and next steps
The holistic value model is currently being piloted by Boliden and Nordic Strategy Partners are developing industry guidelines for how to adopt and use the holistic value model in mining organisations.
- We are very excited to present the first generation of a holistic value model to stakeholders and we look forward to further develop and enhance this tool in partnership with the industry, Gr?nberg concludes.
DIGGING DEEP: FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
CLIMB – changing land use impact on biodiversity
Sweden and the Nordics are no exception to critical biodiversity loss. Until recently, the mining sector lacked a commonly accepted and science-based tool to assess, anticipate and manage impact from land use change. CLIMB is changing this. An open-source model developed in partnership with 200 stakeholders, it calculates a baseline and impacts of land use change, both positive and negative, to enable informed decision-making.
CLIMB has been developed by environmental experts at Ecogain in partnership with Vattenfall , LKAB , Svemin , Talga Group , SBMI, Boliden , Specialfastigheter Sverige AB Skellefte? Kraft AB , Svenska kraftn?t , Heidelberg Materials and Skanska , and support from Swedish Mining Innovation .????????????????
- CLIMB makes it possible to quantitatively measure and take action in order to preserve and restore biodiversity loss. By using CLIMB, it becomes easier to understand risk and impact, and to estimate the effect of measures taken, says Sara B?kmark , Ecogain consultant.
The objective was to find a common ground for a biodiversity metric and to create an open-source model to calculate the biodiversity value in terrestrial environments, by assigning numerical values to biodiversity.
-The solution resulted in an excel-based method, suitable for re-adjustments and holding user-friendly properties, enabling calculations of baseline and future changes, on-site and off-site (compensation areas), based on parameters such as area, nature- and landscape value, time, difficulty and distance, B?kmark explains.
Key outcomes of CLIMB
The CLIMB-model is a result of a partnership of 12 stakeholders representing different businesses. In total, more than 200 stakeholders have been involved in the process, including stakeholder user groups and Advisory Board members.Beyond designing and launching the CLIMB-model, the project team has made some important learnings about the innovation process:
Future
The next step is to secure a long-term management model that ensures that CLIMB maintains the highest possible standard of integrity and usability. CLIMB is available at climb.ecogain.se.
COMING UP
Next Digging deep Newsletter will be out in April. Our regular newsletter will be published in the end of the month.
Stay tuned!