A new model for mining

"What has always fascinated me is how you make change in the world.

I first got into environmental work after graduating from college in the 80s. Then I started working for Greenpeace, which was doing an essential job of bringing issues to the forefront and showing what needed to change.

If you're going to tackle whaling, you put yourself between the harpoon and the whale, and that creates the leverage you need to change practices. But when it comes to something like climate change, it’s much more complicated. It became clear to me that I wanted to keep working on the same issues but, to do that, I had to work with industry to get something constructive done with the companies that were seen as the problem.

And so that's when I started working more closely with certain companies that I thought had an interest in doing things a little differently. I started working a lot on mining issues at that stage – and that’s what led me to start Regeneration.

I'm the unlikely CEO of a mining company, right? Because I come from the environmental community. But in my way of thinking, that combination – where you can bring together mining companies with leadership from civil society and NGOs – is exactly what's needed right now.

Regeneration is a different kind of mining company – we focus first on restoration outcomes. When we identify a restoration opportunity, we then work together with the community to build a closure vision. Then we use re-mining to achieve better community, conservation, and climate outcomes.

Waste from past mining contains metals like cobalt, lithium, copper, platinum and tellurium. That waste can help fuel the energy transition and meet the responsible sourcing needs of green technology and sustainable brands. We go in and remine waste rock and water, take the metals out which are part of the pollution problem, and then turn it into a positive green product to help fuel the energy transition. So mine waste becomes not just a risk, but also an amazing opportunity.

We blend NGO and commercial thinking, and we draw on experts from both sectors. And using this model, we can disrupt the status quo.”

“Nose to tail” mining

Over the past few years, our scientists and engineers have been hard at work finding new uses for every material we dig out of the ground and using the by-products of our metal processing operations too. In Canada we’re producing scandium from titanium waste and in the US we’re creating tellurium as a by-product of copper production.

By extracting valuable minerals from waste – or creating new products from the waste itself – we can reduce the amount sent to landfill, make useful products, create new revenue streams and help our customers meet their sustainability goals.