“Digging Deeper: The Human Rights impact of coal in the global South”
By DEJUSTICIA and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre
Comments in this recent report (November 2015) about Bettercoal highlight the importance of reporting and dialogue with interested parties to provide updates on our activity and plans.
On page 52, the report states:
“Among energy companies, some European coal buyers have created the Bettercoal initiative. It includes a code for mining companies that they purchase from, covering transparency, human rights, and social and environmental performance. It does provide for site-level assessments, but these are largely carried out by coal mining companies themselves, with only one to date (Drummond in Colombia) conducting a third-party assessment – in a process that NGOs criticized as lacking independence or transparency and ignoring victims of violence or the need to provide remedies for abuse. The initiative as a whole is entirely governed by energy companies that use coal – leaving it open to criticism from development organizations that it fails to include the voices of affected people, lacks transparency, and sidesteps the need for remedies for past abuses.”
Though Self-Assessment Questionnaires are conducted by the mines themselves, independent third party assessments are the next step. By the time of this publication, we will have had to further 3 on-site independent audits, with more in the pipeline. As reported in this Newsletter we plan to further develop reporting mechanisms in 2016 and will look to the newly formed multi-stakeholder Technical & Advisory Committee to help address any gaps in reporting and grievance resolution.
For further information, see following links:
