Development of Sustainability Framework for the Gold Mining Industry in Myanmar

Mining has several impacts on the host community, country, and world at large. Mining-related issues are multifaceted, and responsibility boundaries are often ambiguous. The expectations of relevant stakeholders and the potential impacts of their operations define which criteria to be emphasized. This study focuses on developing a sustainability framework for the Myanmar gold mining industry. The reason is mainly that no prior research had yet developed a set of viable and effective sustainability practices for Myanmar mining companies. Therefore, the study aims to explore the well-defined sector-specific effective sustainability criteria that are distinctively appropriate for the Myanmar gold mining industry. The study has three methodological stages: archival research, questionnaire survey, and interview. In the first stage, archival research is carried out for the primary listing of sustainability criteria. These criteria are carefully collected from the 11 International sustainability guidelines and 20 previous research papers on the development of sustainability frameworks. In the second stage, relevant stakeholders’ opinions were studied through a questionnaire survey on the appropriateness of primarily listed criteria to study context. The final step is to conduct semi-structured interviews with senior management personnel of the Myanmar gold mining companies for the appropriateness and practical usefulness of sustainable development criteria. The study brings forward a framework of appropriate sustainable business practices for Myanmar gold mining companies. The suggested guidelines framework comprises 21 sustainability criteria under the ESG core focuses that the Myanmar gold mining industry would do well to emphasize in their sustainability efforts. The 21 sustainability criteria include eight environmental-related, six corporate governance-related, and seven social-related. The proposed guideline framework would enable Myanmar gold mining companies to gain the trust of its stakeholders and to enhance their long-term corporate value.