Global responsible sourcing requirements are heightening scrutiny on the automotive industry.
Strong voluntary standards and certifications—which European Union (EU) regulations recognize as a compliance tool—can support automakers’ improved due diligence.
As automakers prepare for compliance and work to reduce harms across their supply chains, it is in the industry’s best interest to only use rigorous standards that promote the continuous improvement and effective audit of their suppliers.
The Consolidated Mining Standard Initiative (CMSI), as proposed, is a weak standard with an opaque auditing process that cannot assure responsible sourcing.
The first public consultation reveals consensus between civil society, the United Nations (UN), the midstream and downstream industries, and consultants that the CMSI is too weak to promote strong social, environmental, and governance environmental (ESG) performance and reliable audits.
The CMSI does not conform with international laws and principles or standards that are widely used and accepted by industry to uphold human rights and responsible business conduct.
The proposed standard and auditing processes also lack sufficient detail to provide meaningful guidance to companies for implementation and to auditors for effective auditing.
These and other gaps in the draft identified by Public Citizen and 19 global groups would enable companies to certify mines as ‘responsible’ without meaningfully changing practices that cause human rights abuses and environmental destruction.
Following the public consultation on the first draft, it is clear that civil society is not alone in these critiques. Feedback from the midstream and downstream industries, ESG consultants to the mining industry, and the UN demonstrate agreement: the structure and content of the CMSI are too weak to promote strong ESG and too ambiguous to support trustworthy audits. They also undermine existing international standards.
Civil society’s position is that the standard is too vague to provide meaningful guidance to companies and to enable effective auditing.
The vast majority of the midstream and downstream industries agree. They rated the standard and assurance process as below expectations. In fact, their views are more closely aligned with those of non-governmental and civil society organizations (NGO/CSO) than with those of other industry and industry association respondents, as seen in Table 4, page 17 of the CMSI Consultation Report.
Individual submissions of midstream and downstream actors elaborate on this alignment. For example, this anonymous submission states:
Due to the low level of prescriptiveness of the requirements, the comparability of audit results between facilities will be difficult. While adaptability to local contexts is important, comparability must be possible and requires clearer guidance both for companies implementing the standard and for downstream companies receiving and reviewing the results, as well as for assurance providers.
Another anonymous company shares:
The proposed standard needs some serious further work to ensure 1. that it reflects at a minimum, minimum existing requirements and 2. That the escalation points between levels of practice reflect actual improvement in the quality of the practice. In order to have any chance to be taken seriously in its ambitions the CMSI must create a system that clearly requires companies to move from good to leading practices. Mining companies must commit to move to leading practice within 5-10 years for example. If not, the CMSI does only support the status quo of ESG performance of mining companies and neglects/contradicts: -customer demands – rising legal requirements – stakeholder expectations.
In current form, the CMSI does not garner the needed trust or credibility with the very stakeholders so integral for its success: the midstream industry who process minerals into usable end products and the downstream industry who drive product market demand.
The CMSI needs a more independent assurance process and rigorous auditor requirements.
Summary of stakeholder feedback captured in the CMSI Consultation Reportsuggests the need for increased independence in the assurance process and more rigorous auditor qualifications. Stakeholder comments included:
- The need for “clearer guidance and stronger language to support auditability and consistent implementation” (pg 4);
- The potential conflict of interests in the standard’s current facility-led process to notify stakeholders and rights holders on the assurance process and the need for better alignment with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in terms of the roles of Indigenous Peoples (pg 6);
- The lack of clarity on training and competency for auditors and that auditors should not be selected by companies, but by the Secretary (pg. 6); and
- The lack of alignment with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) of the audit dispute resolution and grievance mechanisms (pg 6).
We also noted many of these same problems in our December 2024 report, which the Initiative Partners tried to dismiss as our misunderstanding of the CMSI’s design and intent.
The UN Working Group for responsible business conduct calls out the CMSI for undermining existing international standards.
The UN Human Rights Office Working Group leading the implementation of the UNGPs conveyed their “profound concerns regarding the lack of alignment between the draft consolidated mining standards and the Guiding Principles, as well as other international human rights standards.”
The Working Group describes how this misalignment creates the very business risks highlighted in our December 2024 brief. Per the UN Working Group’s submission:
The misalignment between the draft standards and the Guiding Principles risks confusing mining companies about their international human rights responsibilities and expectations. It also exposes businesses to potential infringements of internationally recognized human rights as well as non-compliance with national laws and regulations. Increasingly, the Guiding Principles are being incorporated into supranational and national legislation, as well as into international instruments and technical standards.
The UN Working Group also ranked the assurance process as significantly below expectations for a robust, credible, replicable, and transparent approach.
Amidst the suite of legal responsible sourcing requirements, the EU’s battery regulation effectively codifies the UNGPs into requirements of automakers and other minerals purchasers.
Automakers should heed the feedback from the UN’s leading authority on the Guiding Principles as a major warning: unless the second draft is drastically strengthened, using the CMSI or sourcing from CMSI-audited mines increases reputational, operational, and financial risks for automakers, especially those selling across the EU market.
When the CMSI tries to discredit civil society, they are undermining widespread consensus.
Civil society has attempted to improve the standard through good faith engagements with the Initiative Partners: sending letters, engaging directly with the Initiative Partners, and participating in the public consultation.
The Initiative Partners have dismissed the feedback and tried to publicly discreditCSOs by stating their analysis contains “factual inaccuracies” and “misinterpretations.”
But CSMI attempts to convince governments, investors, automakers and other major mineral purchasers that the CMSI will advance responsible mining and tackle endemic harms to communities and the environment.
These attempts don’t only seek to delegitimize civil society; they undermine the views of the UN working group, ESG practitioners, and industry actors whose submissions repeat concerns that CSOs have raised on the weaknesses of the standard and assurance process.
The evidence across the board continues to confirm what we’ve been saying all along: the CMSI is a tool for industry greenwashing, not responsible mining.
The question is, will the CMSI actually integrate this feedback into the second draft, or will they continue to dismiss it as NGO ‘misunderstanding’ and mislead automakers in the process?