ICMM reports tailings compliance lower than anticipated

The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) has published its 2025 tailings progress report, detailing how companies are upholding the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM).

The report collates data from members’ individual disclosures made in 2025, offering a transparent snapshot of collective progress towards full conformance as well as case studies of implementation efforts and wider work to reduce or eliminate tailings.

When the GISTM was published in 2020, ICMM members committed that all applicable tailings facilities with an extreme or very high consequence classification would conform with the GISTM by August 2023 and all other applicable facilities by August 2025 — spurring immediate and sustained action by ICMM members.

Analysis of ICMM members’ 2025 disclosures shows that while significant progress has been made, achieving full alignment with GISTM is taking more time than initially anticipated.

Out of the total of 836 ICMM member facilities, 67% are in full conformance with GISTM while 33% remain in partial conformance.

ICMM director Emma Gagen says while full alignment is taking longer than expected, the commitment by ICMM members to meet its requirements at every applicable facility remains unequivocal.

“The system level change within companies that it has driven is unprecedented — fundamentally reshaping how tailings facilities are managed and requiring significant resource and time,” she said.

“However, the criticality of the issue means we need to set a high bar and embrace challenges as an opportunity to share knowledge across the whole industry.”

Having made the decision to prioritise implementing the GISTM at tailings facilities that would have the highest consequences downstream in the event of a failure, ICMM members have made the greatest progress with the facilities classified as extreme and very high consequence, with more than 80% of ICMM members in full conformance.

Conformance of facilities classified as high, significant and low consequence ranges from 53 to 65%.

“The journey to safer tailings facilities and conformance with the GISTM doesn’t have an end point,” Dr Gagen said.

“Tailings management is inherently a process of continuous improvement and we are encouraged by the significant progress each company has made so far.

“Successful outcomes will be built not only on unwavering long-term commitment by companies, but also from close collaboration between the industry, financers, government, civil society and local communities.”