Game theory for analyzing and improving environmental management in the mining industry

Abstract The interactions, negotiations and decision-making involved in environmental sustainability in the mining industry are intricate and multi-faceted. Negotiations between communities, companies, governments and countless other stakeholders occur predominantly during the permitting stage where potential impacts are estimated, management plans are established, site remediation is planned, and the sharing of benefits is discussed. Game theory is a structured tool that can investigate the interactions between two or more players to understand their actions under given conditions. There are many applications of game theory in economics, environmental economics, business, policy, and sciences; however, there are limited examples of applications in the mining industry. With a multi-criteria approach, this research develops five games to explore game theory for the mining industry. The games are developed to investigate scenarios that maximize both overall sustainability and environmental sustainability. A discussion is provided on the challenges of incorporating multi-criteria as well as the general issues with modelling environmental management problems with game theory for the mining industry. Finally, this paper concludes by providing future direction for further research and mineral policy.