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Arctic Yearbook 2015
functions from the state to the private sector (Fifka & Pobizhan 2014; WWF 2007). Mining
corporations considered CSR as a tool that would enable them to operate and to compete as well as
to increase trust among international investors (Humphreys 2011; Kuznetsov & Kuznetsova 2012).
By contrast with other international instruments for responsible mining, the concept of CSR has been
naturalized into the Russian socio-political environment with some country-specific interpretations.
CSR in Russia is mostly focused on charitable activities, donations and company philanthropy (Fifka
& Pobizhan 2014; Polishchuk 2009). From Soviet times, large companies inherited the responsibility
of taking care of the surrounding communities. Being the major tax payers in the region they were the
main producers of social services (Fifka & Pobizhan 2014; Riabova & Didyk 2014). This practice is
still in force today. Within social programs, companies repair roads, build new schools, invest in sport
as well as health and youth projects of the region. Relations between the municipalities and large
resource-based companies are often framed by bilateral, trilateral or multilateral agreements on socioeconomic partnerships between the company, municipality and/or regional government (ibid).
Conclusions
In this article, we have analyzed and compared the national strategies and policy tools, and reviewed
questions related to social acceptance as well as aspects of policy content for sustainable mining in
four Arctic countries: Finland, Sweden, Greenland and Russia. A summary of the comparative results
can be seen in the Table 1.
The social dimensions and geographical setting in the Arctic as well as the national contexts in each
country are quite different and greatly influence their individual sustainable mining policies. Mining in
the Arctic faces particular challenges due to the sensitive socio-environmental characteristics of these
regions.
It seems that in all four countries, there is a need to develop mining policies concerning indigenous
people’s rights, sensitive environmental values, challenging infrastructure development and economic
opportunities. Arctic regions, in general, lack infrastructure and have multiple and competing land
uses to contend with. For mining in particular, Finland and Sweden are focused on transportation
infrastructure (roads and railroads) development in the Arctic, while Greenland is considering a publicprivate partnership model to fund some of the new infrastructure development projects (Government
of Greenland 2014), but financing still poses a notable challenge for mining development in the country.
All countries have recently established national mining strategies. In these, the Arctic is not taken as
its own special issue, but as part of the general policy approaches. The countries point out the
importance of sustainability but with slightly different focuses. Finland and Sweden consider the role
of technical innovations and research as well as the mine lifecycle approach as being central for
encouraging improved environmental performance. In Sweden and Finland, mining strategies have a
strong regional focus. Greenland, on the other hand, sees mining as a tool for social development as
a whole by stimulating local economies as well as increasing local employment through skills
development and training.
Tiainen, Sairinen & Sidorenko