This year’s ICMM Responsible Mining Leadership Forum’s theme was “Truth”—a fitting lens through which to examine the state of sustainability in mining. And if there’s one truth that emerged loud and clear, it’s this: a key challenge to effective social investment is quantifying its value and building a compelling business case that shows the shared benefits all functions get, when host communities are more resilient.

The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) is a global leadership body dedicated to promoting sustainable development in the mining and metals industry, with a focus on responsible practices that protect people and the planet. The recently held Responsible Mining Leadership Forum is ICMM’s flagship event that convenes industry leaders, practitioners, and stakeholders to advance community resilience, inclusive governance, and social performance strategies across the mining lifecycle.

What we heard across the four days of the annual conference was that communities, governments, and development partners are increasingly open to collaboration. They understand the value of investing in community resilience, ensuring shared prosperity, and securing long-term, positive engagement.

However, mining companies are still struggling to accurately measure their contributions and share their stories across their businesses and operating regions. Without clear metrics and a strong business case, it is difficult to gain much needed buy-in from functions such as procurement, engineering, legal and even senior leadership, who sometimes struggle to see the part they can play in promoting community resilience from exploration and beyond closure.

And without their buy-in, even the positive impacts of the most promising initiatives can be diminished.

What’s become abundantly clear is that the challenge is around how organisations can tie social investment to a clear business case to make it really matter to people outside of the Social Performance function. It’s not enough to make ESG promises. Unless the workforce, from truck drivers to legal teams, understands and embraces the mission, any impact created may get lost or muddied.

Measurement is the Missing Link

One of the most pressing challenges is measurement. We still lack robust, standardised ways to meaningfully quantify the impact of community resilience initiatives. How do you measure the value of forming a multi-stakeholder partnership to diversify the regional economy around a mine?

How do you track the ripple effects of a community program that builds institutional capacity and trust over time?

We’re working with mining companies, both big and small, to address this gap, developing global indicators that go beyond counting dollars spent or people trained. These tools aim to help companies make data-informed decisions and build a business case for social investment to their coworkers, leaders, partners and wider society.

Because once you have numbers, you can make the case. You can tie performance to impact. And you can start to shift mindsets.

From Trucks to Trust: Everyone Has a Role

Conference-goers underscored this idea that social performance isn’t just about community relations superintendents or sustainability teams. It’s about every employee, from the truck driver who kicks up too much dust or accidentally bumps a parked car, to the procurement officer who makes an extra effort to choose a local supplier.

These interactions shape how communities perceive mining companies.

Yet community resilience initiatives that build trust are often seen as siloed community relations projects that do not pertain to or involve the general workforce. We need to change that.

Another participant captured this tension perfectly when they asked whether organisations are telling their story effectively and pondered why it sometimes takes a catastrophe to make true change?

Simplifying the Message, Broadening the Approach

Our team presented on simplifying the definition of community resilience to make it more accessible across teams and functions. When you say “community resilience,” many people outside of the social performance, external affairs or community relations function may not immediately see how they fit in. We need to demystify these concepts and create clear pathways for cross-functional involvement, whether that’s through building out the local service provider pipeline, enhancing the capacity of local, public-sector institutions, or integrating community resilience metrics into performance reviews across the board.

UNEP’s framing at the event was particularly helpful: mining contributes to all five Ps—people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships. That’s a powerful narrative, but it needs to be translated into operational language that resonates across functions.

We also need to think beyond our own companies. When thinking through potential partners to bring into a community resilience initiative, there is great potential to engage other private sector across industries such as energy, timber and agriculture, for example. Bringing these actors into the mix builds trust across a region, demonstrates good partnership, leverages capital and most importantly reduces dependency on the mine. Many companies operating in rural areas face the same challenges. Collaboration could unlock new solutions and shared value.

Programs That Work and Why They Matter

Take, for example, a project we designed with a mining company in Latin America. Instead of donating computers to local schools, the company worked with communities, school directors, other mining houses, suppliers and the regional government to co-design a multi-decade technical skilling roadmap.

The result? A shared strategy that empowers schools to tell mining companies what their students need to gain digital skills, coordinated industry efforts that channel investment into common goals, a reputational boost that pays dividends when engaging with government stakeholders and eventually a local pipeline of qualified workers.

While this program positions the mine as one to follow and collaborate with in the region; internally, there remains a lack of understanding around the importance of the program to overall business success. Some functions outside of external affairs, for example, do not immediately see how they can contribute to, or benefit from the initiative. That’s a problem.

We need to make these successes quantifiable and visible. Palladium is doing so by developing metrics that measure partner co-investment and people placed in jobs, focusing on outcomes that simultaneously boost business and community resilience. These metrics are helping the mining company to demonstrate how social investment initiatives contribute to positive business outcomes, generating not just feel-good stories, but strategic advantages, that motivate employees across functions to get involved.

The Path Forward

Tools and measurement standards will help. But they’re not enough. We need cross-functional buy-in. We need KPIs tied to social performance. And we need to ask the right questions, not just “what are we doing?” but “why does it matter?”, “who needs to be involved?” and “what’s in it for them?”

I’m reminded of one speaker who said that listening is perhaps even more important than speaking. That applies internally as much as externally. We must listen to our colleagues, understand their questions, and build bridges between functions.

The truth is, we’re all in the same boat. Every development organisation, every mining company, every project struggles with internal alignment. But if we can crack the measurement challenge and use data to better communicate why community resilience must matter to us all, we can start to crack the culture challenge.

And that’s when real change becomes possible.