SILVER & SUSTAINABILITY

Video Demonstrating the Silver Industry’s Commitment to Sustainability

Mining and refining member companies of the Silver Institute are committed to a sustainable future where a healthy environment, economic prosperity, and social justice are pursued simultaneously to ensure the well-being and quality of life of present and future generations. Indeed, sustainable development has never been more important. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which are five years into a 15-year program, are a blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. We contribute by responsibly producing silver, a crucial material for use in renewable energy and electric vehicles. Its anti-bacterial properties find broad application in a range of sectors including water treatment, medical applications, and advanced textiles.

Our mining and refining members are committed to sustainability. They focus on the long term, operating responsibly at all times, and work hard to ensure the highest standards of health and safety, environmental stewardship, and governance. They create value for their stakeholders and ensure operational continuity. They also strive to understand and respect the needs of local communities by prioritizing local goods, services, and employees.

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Silver for a Sustainable Future

Making your Water Safer

Millions of purification systems are sold and installed in hospitals, community water systems, pools, and spas each year, and silver is inside many of them. Silver prevents bacteria and algae from building up in their filters, removing bacteria, chlorine, trihalomethanes, lead, particulates, and odor. Silver, in concert with oxygen, also acts as a powerful sanitizer that offers an alternative to other disinfectant systems.

However, according to the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO), one in ten of the world’s population still lacks access to safe drinking water. Contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to the transmission of a range of diseases that are all easily treatable and preventable, but they continue to lead to millions of deaths every single year primarily in low-income countries.

Fortunately, silver-based solutions are being developed to tackle many water-based challenges common in the developing world. Technology developed in India over the last decade has been successfully commercialized, initially offering a method to remove harmful pesticides from drinking water and, more recently, removing arsenic from groundwater supplies. Millions of silver nanofiltrations units have been supplied to some of the poorest communities in India, improving water supplies for tens of millions of people. The industry is also continually innovating, with a focus on the development of antimicrobial silver-infused paper filters, which are simple, cheap and do not require electricity for their operation.

Protecting Your Health

Silver has been associated with human medicine and healthcare for over two millennia. And over the last several decades, considerable efforts have been put into understanding silver nitrate’s mode of action, which led to the development of silver sulfadiazine (SSD), which has led to significant advancesments in modern medicine.

  • Silver can be used for wound treatment and burn care and is a viable alternative to treatment if more modern dressings are not an option for any reason
  • Silver is used in a range of applications to minimize or prevent infection. In 2007 the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) cleared a silver-coated breathing tube for sale. The tube, which is manufactured by C R Bard, helps to reduce the risk of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia (VAP). Given that 15% of patients on ventilators develop VAP every year, preventing over 25,000 deaths every year from infection.
  • Silver doesn’t just help treat disease; its unique properties are increasingly being used to diagnose medical issues like tuberculosis.

Figure 1: Taken from Broger et al., Lancet Infectious Disease, 2019

Contributing to a cleaner environment

Silver is found all around us, powering many of the devices and tools we use on a day-to-day basis. Silver’s single largest source of demand is the electronics industry which used almost ¼ of a billion ounces of the metal in 2018. The ongoing electrification of our world is only going to increase these levels of demand, particularly in sectors such as the automotive market where both hybrid (HEV) and fully electric vehicles (EV) are becoming increasingly common. Research carried out by the Silver Institute and GFMS Refinitiv in 2018 indicates that HEV & EV demand may treble demand for silver in the automotive sector by 2040 (figure 3).

Figure 2: GFMS Thomson Reuters (Refinitiv) & Silver Institute, 2018

Silver is also a key component of the world’s foremost renewable energy technology, photovoltaic (PV) (or solar) cells. In 2018, 80m ounces of the metal was used by the sector, where it is turned into a paste and then coated onto a silicon wafer forming the large solay arrays we are all familiar with. When sunlight strikes the silicon, silver helps to transport the electricity created for immediate use or storage batteries for later consumption. Silver’s unique physical properties put it at the heart of the whole solar industry, with even newer generations of PV technology utilizing silver. For example, perovskite thin-film cells require a silver cathode element, and this cutting-edge technology will work in tandem with traditional silicon cells to create the next-generation of sustainable electricity production.

Another critically important application for silver is as a catalyst. Catalysts are materials that accelerate or alter the path taken to transform one chemical entity into another, generally without changing itself. Such chemical reactions are often extremely slow, and require external influences to progress at an efficient pace. These influences are generally heat, pressure and the presence of an appropriate catalyst (and sometimes a combination of all three). Silver is an excellent catalyst and is used in a range of important chemical processes. One such example is in the production of Ethylene Oxide (EO), a key ‘building block’ chemical for the petrochemical and polymer industries. Approximately 160m ounces of silver is currently in EO plants worldwide, constantly in use or being recycled and regenerated, a true example of sustainability in science.

Member Company Sustainability Reporting and Information

Member companies of the Silver Institute are committed to a sustainable future where a healthy environment, economic prosperity, and social justice are pursued simultaneously to ensure present and future generations’ well-being and quality of life. You can find more information about our member’s journeys by clicking on the hyperlinks below, which will redirect you to the wide-ranging sustainability efforts and reporting they have put in place at their facilities around the world.

How our Silver Mining and Refining Companies Operate Responsibly

Silver mining employees wearing protective gear.

Our People

Our employees and contractors are our most valuable resources. We are committed to protecting their health, safety, and well-being. We invest in our people and prioritize their safe return home after every shift. We offer some of the highest paid careers available, often in remote areas, with fair and competitive wages, benefits, and opportunities for training and professional development.

Health and Safety

The need for continuous attention to safety is particularly important in our industry, as all forms of mining, especially underground, pose numerous safety hazards. Minimizing the risk of accidents and injuries helps make employees and contractors safe, confident, and more productive on the job.

Ongoing risk assessment is a critical part of our members’ safety management system. Frequent safety inspections and audits are conducted across their mining sites to identify and mitigate potential hazards. In almost all cases, employees must complete an inspection checklist before entering or working in a new area of a mine to verify that safe conditions and controls exist.

Our member companies are committed to protecting the health, safety, and well-being of their employees, contractors, suppliers, and community partners where they operate; indeed, safety is at the heart of everything we do. Our members believe that this safety culture is directly related to operational success and the creation of long-term value.

Opportunities & Talent Development

Our member companies strive to provide both a fair wage to all of their employees, and opportunities for career development through training and mentoring schemes. Indeed, jobs at our member companies silver mines are highly sought after, often providing higher levels of compensation and opportunity than available locally. Our mining and refining members proactively develop their people, creating a robust pipeline of future leaders. They achieve this by implementing training and development programs that provide opportunities for employees to achieve milestones, and to diversify into different roles as their careers progress. This helps companies retain and develop talent and, critically, promote from within.

The Community

We are an integral part of the fabric of the communities in which we live and operate and respect local cultures and traditions. We contribute to economic growth and sustainable communities by providing local jobs, internships, education and scholarships, investing in infrastructure, supporting community organizations and local businesses, and paying federal, state and local taxes.

Economic Impact

Silver Institute member companies create significant value in the communities, regions, and countries where they operate. This takes the form of wages and benefits, payments to contractors and suppliers, local, state and federal taxes. Developing small and medium businesses has been a key driver to the social acceptability in the communities.

Education

Some Silver Institute members operate in communities that are socio-economically diverse, ranging from low to high levels of social marginalization. In line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, the companies collaborate with their communities to improve inclusive and quality schooling. Educational support is provided through contributions to school infrastructure, scholarships, and learning programs, while older members of the community benefit from a range of training opportunities, which helps to promote lifelong learning.

Community Health

Many Silver Institute members operate in regions where access to quality healthcare provision can be challenging. In line with SDG 3, the companies collaborate with authorities and NGO’s to support healthy lives and wellbeing in the communities. Contributions to health facilities and equipment, collaboration on healthcare and emergency response, are some examples of the companies to support community health.

The Environment

We respect the environment through responsible stewardship. We develop, operate and reclaim our mines, aiming higher than minimum legal standards while utilizing sound science and innovation through leading modern mining practices.

Modern, Sustainable Mining

Reducing the impact on the environment is a priority of Silver Institute mining and refining member companies. Consideration of both current and potential environmental challenges is an integral part of the mining life cycle. They aim to mitigate the environmental impact of their operations and have comprehensive environmental management programs to meet regulatory standards and address risk management. We strive to develop responsibly, meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations.

Understanding environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas and air emissions, energy consumption, waste generation, land disturbance, aquatic and terrestrial flora, and fauna diversity, water quality, and water usage, are a few of the factors we focus on from initial site design through operations to post-mine closure.

Extensive environmental assessments are conducted prior to the construction and expansion of our mines. These assessments are essential for proper mine planning, operations, and implementation of environmental controls for operation and closure. Comprehensive environmental management plans in conjunction with topic-specific plans at each site provide guidance on how to implement our environmental initiatives, meet regulatory standards and protect our environment throughout the lifecycle of the mine.

Each operation undergoes an extensive public permitting process and is subject to numerous Federal, State and local regulatory programs. Our members routinely engage with our communities and stakeholders through all phases of the mine life cycle.

Water

Mining and processing of silver require large volumes of water. Access to water is often a relevant issue for the communities. Therefore, securing access and being responsible water stewards are critical success factors. The mining and refining companies of the Silver Institute are committed to water-efficient operations and cooperation with communities, authorities and NGO’s. Closed water circuits, reuse of wastewater and rainwater harvesting are some examples of the efforts to reduce the water footprint of silver.

Biodiversity

Our mining and refining members aim to responsibly manage the land and its biodiversity throughout the lifecycle of a silver mine. Before developing any mining project, companies conduct Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), which identify potential impacts and the actions required to avoid or mitigate them. Relocation of species and reforestation are some examples of measures to protect biodiversity.

Mineral Waste Management

While very rare, recent tailings incidents have served as a reminder of the critical nature of Tailing Storage Facilities (TSFs). Silver Institute mining companies are fully committed to addressing the expectations of its stakeholders by designing, building, operating, and reclaiming their TSFs responsibly. Silver Institute mining companies adhere to the regulatory requirements regarding tailings management at their mining sites. Plans and risk management procedures are developed and implemented as an initial step in the mine lifecycle. In addition to the many engineering and administrative controls in place, regular geochemical testing of tailings and other controls provide information to manage tailings dams and materials. Regular inspections by regulatory officials assist us in complying with all regulations and standards within each jurisdiction.