The world needs more metals. Does it need more mines?

Reflections from IMPC 2026 on resource stewardship, innovation and rethinking how we extract value from the earth to empower a future fit mineral processing industry.

By Jenni Sweet | Technical Director, Mining3

Global demand for metals continues to grow, driven by the energy transition, infrastructure development, and technological advancement. But meeting this demand raises an important question: How do we produce more of the metals the world needs without proportionally increasing waste, environmental disturbance and pressure on natural resources?

At the recent International Mineral Processing Congress (IMPC 2026) in Cape Town, this challenge emerged as a common thread across several thought-provoking plenary presentations.

While each speaker approached the topic from a different perspective, the underlying message was clear: the future of mining and mineral processing must focus not only on how much we extract, but on how much value we create from the resources we already have.

Rethinking the value of our resources

Craig Miller, CEO of Valterra Platinum in South Africa, opened the congress with a compelling perspective on resource stewardship. His message extended beyond the efficient extraction of minerals to the responsibility of ensuring that mining creates lasting value for the communities surrounding operations.

Dr Pedro Cavalcanti, General Manager at Vale S.A. in Brazil, reinforced this thinking, highlighting how future mining and processing will create more value through people deploying technology to achieve full resource utilisation, not via technology in isolation.

Together, these perspectives challenge the industry to broaden its definition of value. It's no longer simply about the quantity of material extracted or the efficiency of a processing plant, but about maximising the economic, environmental and social benefits generated throughout the mining lifecycle.

Innovation doesn't always start in mining

Professor Cyril O'Connor from the University of Cape Town offered another important perspective: some of mineral processing's most significant advances have come from technologies developed outside our industry.

Through what he described as innovation spillover, pioneering researchers have adapted measurement techniques and technologies from other sectors to improve our grasp of the underlying science of mineral processing systems. These advances have helped make processes safer, more efficient and less resource-intensive.

It's a reminder that innovation doesn't always require inventing something entirely new. Sometimes, the greatest opportunities lie in connecting existing technologies, expertise and ideas in new ways.

For an industry facing increasingly complex technical and sustainability challenges, collaboration across traditional disciplinary boundaries will be essential.

Sustainability is about more than reducing impact

In the closing plenary, Professor Sue Harrison from the University of Queensland explored the opportunities presented by bio-based processes for recovering metals from diverse resources.

Her presentation also highlighted the relationship between human development and environmental sustainability. Using a human development index, she illustrated a fundamental global challenge: many developing nations tread lightly on the planet but lack access to the quality of life enjoyed in developed economies. Only a handful of countries fell within the ‘sustainable development quadrant’ where quality and quantity are balanced.

This raises an important consideration for our industry.

Sustainable mining must be about more than minimising environmental impacts. It must also contribute to improving quality of life and creating lasting economic and social value.

What does this mean for the future of mining?

These perspectives reinforce the importance of the studies we're advancing at Mining3, particularly related to in-place mining, tailings reprocessing and resource efficiency.

Traditional mining typically involves extracting, transporting and processing large volumes of material, much of which ultimately becomes waste. But what if we could fundamentally rethink that approach?

In-place mining explores opportunities to recover valuable minerals in situ or as close as possible to the mining face, reducing the need to extract and move large quantities of material. The potential benefits are significant: less waste, lower emissions, reduced surface disturbance and more selective recovery of valuable resources.

Similarly, tailings reprocessing and repurposing offer opportunities to recover critical and saleable materials to get additional value from material previously considered waste, while potentially reducing long-term environmental liabilities.

Our work is focused on developing ways to move these approaches from promising concepts towards practical industry applications.

Importantly, our studies aim to rethink how value is preserved across the lifecycle of an asset so that social, environmental and regional benefits can be compared in economic terms.

Moving from conversation to action

One of my strongest takeaways from IMPC 2026 is that a resilient mineral processing industry will depend as much on how we value and use resources as on the technologies we develop to recover minerals.

Achieving meaningful change will require more deliberate collaboration between mining companies, researchers, technology developers and communities, supported by a willingness to challenge established approaches.

The opportunity is not simply to make existing processes more efficient, but to fundamentally reconsider how we extract, recover and preserve value.

The world needs more metals. But it does not necessarily need more mines, more tailings and more waste.

It needs smarter approaches to unlocking the full potential of the resources we already have. And that's a challenge worth working on together.

Jenni Sweet is Technical Director at Mining3, an industry-led, not-for-profit organisation focused on advancing innovation across the mining value chain.