The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) published a report mapping over 100 sustainability standards and initiatives (SSIs) operating across the minerals and metals value chains. The report identifies 15 hallmarks of effective SSIs across governance, scope, performance assurance, review mechanisms, and viability.

According to a UNEP technical highlight, SSIs are “frameworks, systems, schemes or programmes designed to help actors across… supply chains to meet and strengthen their sustainability performance.” They are “typically led by the private sector or multi-stakeholder partnerships.”

Global demand for minerals and metals, driven by the energy transition, digitalization, and infrastructure expansion, has turned up pressure to ensure responsible sourcing. This led to rapid proliferation of SSIs. More than 100 SSIs are operating in the minerals and metals sector alone. Besides offering flexibility and innovation, this diversity creates a complex and fragmented landscape, leading to potential confusion among stakeholders – and diluting SSIs’ impact. 

Titled, ‘Stocktake of Sustainability Standards and Initiatives for Minerals and Metals: Leveraging Synergies Between Sustainability Standards and Initiatives and Public Instruments to Enhance Environmental Governance,’ the report explains how SSIs interact with laws, regulations, and policies, and makes recommendations on how to leverage these to enhance environmental governance rather than undermine it.

Despite their potential to boost sustainability ambition, strengthen access to environmental data, improve compliance, and engage diverse stakeholders in decision making, there are challenges for SSIs’ integration into public instruments. These include fragmentation, compliance burdens, greenwashing risks, corporate dominance in governance structures and limited government engagement, and false substitution for regulation.

Among opportunities for SSIs to improve environmental governance, the report highlights, inter alia:

• Integrating SSIs into regulation as benchmarks or reference tools; 
• Raising ambition by exceeding legal baselines on biodiversity, climate, and social inclusion;
• Supporting enforcement where public oversight is limited; 
• Improving transparency through standardized reporting and open data; and
• Fostering inclusive governance among governments, industry, communities, and Indigenous Peoples.

The report recommends that independent studies be carried out on the costs, impacts, and trade-offs associated with SSIs’ implementation. It calls for “collaboration and interoperability among standard-setting bodies and recommends using multilateral platforms to foster dialogue and shared learning,” according to UNEP.

UNEP and IGF built on resolutions 6/5, 5/12, and 4/19 from the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) and their 2024 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to compile the stocktake. The recently concluded UNEA’s seventh session adopted another resolution on minerals and metals, focusing on strengthening international cooperation on their environmentally sound management.

The report was issued on 27 November 2025. [Publication: Stocktake of Sustainability Standards and Initiatives for Minerals and Metals: Leveraging Synergies Between Sustainability Standards and Initiatives and Public Instruments to Enhance Environmental Governance] [Publication Landing Page]