Social media key to improving mining’s reputation: Adshead-Bell
It’s all about better messaging
Geologist, investor and company director Nikki Adshead-Bell delivered a provocative keynote presentation at the Gold Forum Americas on Monday.
Adshead-Bell described being asked to deliver a keynote at the event as a career highlight, particularly after recently entering remission from an aggressive form of cancer.
Her wide-ranging address centred on the state of the mining sector.
“The single biggest challenge our industry faces is one of reputation,” she said, adding that the industry was “universally loathed”.
“The fault lies with us, and it lies with the leaders of our industry. We've done an incredibly poor job propagating that the products of mining are intimately linked to life as we know it today.
“My sister, who is a cultural anthropologist, I think, said it well. She said, ‘you can choose to be a vegan, but you can't choose not to be associated with the products of mining’.”
Adshead-Bell said eight universities in the UK did not allow representatives from extractive industries to try to recruit students.
“This is a leading indicator that we continue to do a very, very poor job managing our business reputationally,” she said.
Mining’s reputation as a heavy polluter was also misplaced, according to Adshead-Bell.
The non-ferrous metals sector accounts for just 0.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
“If we compare this to residential buildings at 10.9%, we do not have protesters out there demanding that we don't build new houses,” Adshead-Bell said.
“So again, there's a lot of misinformation about what the mining industry does and the critical role that we play in society.”
In terms of the solution, Adshead-Bell suggested there was low-hanging fruit.
“Often the messaging when we talk about this is, ‘oh, it's too hard to change the hearts and minds’. I completely disagree with that,” she said.
Adshead-Bell said social media was a tool that was underutilized by the sector.
“I don't mean to pick on the World Gold Council, but I am, because they're the leading advocacy organization for our industry,” she said.
“The average person that's 18 to 39 years old – a core demographic – they are big, big users of TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, yet the World Gold Council is not using those methods of social media to promulgate a thesis about what gold is and what it means for society.”
After looking at the large companies in the sector, she confirmed they also weren’t using those tools.
“So I think the solution is quite simple. Hire a millennial,” she said.
“They understand how to communicate with their own sector. Let's start being proactive about what it is that we do and the value that we bring to society.”
Adshead-Bell also had advice on messaging for some of the companies presenting at the Gold Forum Americas.
“We've seen this trend in our industry, where the largest companies and the leaders of our industry are talking less about gold and more about copper,” she said.
“And I think, as a gold mining company, if your message is ‘I want to be a copper company when I grow up’, I don't know how you expect to attract new investors into our sector.
“If you can't speak positively about your flagship commodity and in a way that resonates with not only the resource community but the marginal investor, how do you expect to attract interest into our sector?”