https://www.skarnassociates.com/
Skarn Associates Limited of the UK
Skarn was founded in September 2016, initially operating as a mineral economics consulting business. In March 2020 Skarn embarked on building a data business focussed on quantifying and benchmarking mining sector GHG emissions, water use and other ESG impacts, at the asset level. BNC’s parent company, Bloomsbury Minerals Economics, became a shareholder at that time. Skarn currently has around twenty staff, specialists is environment and sustainability, mineral economics, geology, mining engineering, mine water management and process metallurgy. It is now the global market leader in this field.
In December 2021, Skarn’s Water Benchmarking Tool was launched, covering the gold mining sector. It integrates operational water data, water balances and external climate data, the latter allowing resilience to drought and flood risk to be compared. Water benchmarking for copper mining followed in March 2022. Skarn will subsequently widen the range of sustainability topics covered further, to include land use, biodiversity and workforce safety.
Quantifying Mining Sector GHG Emissions, Energy & Water Use
We provide GHG Emission & Energy Intensity Curves for all major mined commodities. These are built up from detailed asset level data, utilising our expertise as mining analysts. We are continually extending our analysis into new areas, such as our recently-launched Gold and Copper Mines water benchmarking products. In due course we will add research into land use, ecosystem impacts and safety performance.
Our analysis covers around 3,000 assets and 600 companies. Our research products are used by mining companies of all sizes, project developers, fund managers, project financiers, royalty and streaming companies, industry bodies and governments.
The principles which underpin our work are:
- Understand the assets: resources, production schedules, mining and process methods.
- Reconcile between the input (for instance energy) and the output (GHG emissions), taking into account all of the available data.
- Skarn quantifies energy intensity, GHG emissions, and water use across supply chains, from mine to finished metal for a wide range of commodities. We are mining industry specialists with deep sector knowledge. Skarn is widely recognised as the market leader in Mining-ESG research.
