By Silvina Dalton, for DelPlata Green.
The standard that pushes mining companies from declarative to demonstrable sustainability
What it is, what changes, and why it's in your company's best interest to understand it now.
Mining is at the heart of the energy transition: it provides the metals needed for batteries, solar panels, and electrical grids. But it's also an activity with a high environmental and social impact. To ensure that this impact is managed and communicated effectively, the international organization GRI published a new standard specifically for the sector in 2024: GRI 14. Here's a simple explanation.
What is GRI 14
GRI 14 is the mining sector standard within the GRI standards system, the world's most widely used sustainability reporting framework. It is the fourth sector standard published by GRI, following those for oil and gas, coal, and agriculture, aquaculture, and fisheries. It applies to large-scale, artisanal, and small-scale mining and is applicable to reports published from January 1, 2026, onward, with early adoption encouraged.
In other words: it is the guide that defines what topics a mining company should report on to show, in a comparable and credible way, how it manages its impacts.
The change in funding: from optional to mandatory
Here's the most important change. Previously, industry-specific guidelines existed, but their use was voluntary. With the new industry standards, the approach changes: if a company wants to report "in accordance" with the GRI standards, it is required to use its industry standard. For a mining company, this means that it's no longer enough to simply choose what to report; it has to start from the list of topics that GRI considers relevant to mining and justify its approach to each one.
How it works: 25 topics and the logic of “comply or explain”
GRI 14 identifies 25 likely material topics for the sector: issues that are highly probable to be significant for any mining company. The company must review each of these topics, one by one. And this is where the mechanism that gives the standard its strength comes in:
If a topic is material to the company, it reports the disclosures required by the standard. But if it decides that a topic is not material, it cannot simply ignore it: it must still list it in its table of contents and explain why it was omitted. This obligation to explain omissions is what makes reports comparable and difficult to manipulate: the reader sees what was reported, what was not, and the rationale behind it.
What topics does it cover?
The 25 topics cover the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of mining. Among the most relevant are:
- Environmental: climate adaptation and resilience, emissions, tailings management, water, biodiversity, and mine closure and rehabilitation.
- Social Studies: occupational health and safety, local communities, indigenous peoples' rights, and conflict-affected and high-risk areas.
- Economic and governance: anti-corruption, payments to governments, and employment practices.
- Sector-specific: Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is listed as a separate topic, recognizing its social importance in many regions.
Tailings management is a good example of why this matters. Tailings are one of the largest waste streams from mining, and a failure to contain them can have serious environmental and safety consequences. GRI 14 requires reporting on how tailings are managed: precisely the kind of evidence we saw, for example, in the Environmental Impact Assessment of the Cerro Negro Mine, with its tailings dam and seepage control system.
The Argentine context: a historic opportunity that needs evidence
In Argentina, where four world-class mining projects are projected to run simultaneously, with $1.4 billion in exports expected by 2026—representing one out of every ten dollars the country will export—GRI 14 arrives at the perfect time. The world launches only two projects of this magnitude per decade; Argentina is about to start four at the same time.
But as industry leaders pointed out at the 2026 Engineering Week of the Argentine Center of Engineers (CAI): having the resource isn't enough. International markets—buyers, investors, and European regulators—are increasingly demanding that mining companies demonstrate they operate responsibly. Not with statements. With evidence.
Companies that begin reporting under GRI 14 today will have a competitive advantage over international investors and buyers who already require it. Those that wait will pay the price of adapting late.
Why it's in your company's best interest to understand this now
GRI 14 doesn't come alone. It's part of a context in which demonstrable sustainability has become a condition for accessing markets and financing. The European CSRD directive requires more rigorous reporting, and the CBAM mechanism incorporates carbon into access to the European market from 2026. In this scenario, having a report aligned with GRI 14 ceases to be a reputational gesture and becomes a competitive advantage.
The practical challenge is that meeting this level of detail requires traceable, auditable, and well-organized data. That's precisely what we do at DelPlata Green. As the exclusive representatives of Zero Carbon One in Latin America—an artificial intelligence, blockchain, and automation platform—we help companies to:
- Measure your carbon footprint in Scopes 1, 2 and 3 with verifiable data.
- Build the traceable evidence that GRI 14 topics require.
- Prepare reports aligned with GRI, SBTi, TCFD and CSRD, ready for external verification.
GRI 14 sets the standard; we help your company achieve it and, above all, demonstrate it.
Want to know how to implement GRI 14 in your company? Write to us at info@delplatagreen.com and let's talk about your ESG reporting strategy.
Sources
- GRI 14: Mining Sector 2024 — Global Reporting Initiative (public download standard).
- Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — European Union regulations.
- Engineering Week 2026 — CAI Argentine Center of Engineers. Data from the Argentine mining sector.