The urgency to fight the climate crisis is driving a global scramble to extract the transition minerals required to power vast solar operations, wind farms, and transport electrification at enormous scale.

The mining sector has a well-known history of human rights and environmental abuse: the Resource Centre has tracked 630 such allegations in transition mineral mining operations since 2010. At the same time, the extractive sector has long been the most dangerous for human rights defenders (HRDs).

This should raise alarm as the new mining boom comes with significant threat: cutting corners on social and environmental safeguards to accelerate mining licensing and permitting frameworks, predicated on the false logic that engaging communities and identifying environmental risks will slow down project development rather than ensure viability and sustainability.

Through case studies and analysis, this report demonstrates that failure to meaningfully engage rightsholders can lead to social unrest, conflicts, litigation and significant financial consequences for companies and investors - all threats to the swift energy transition on which fighting the climate crisis depends. On the other hand, corporate commitment to "meaningful engagement" can underpin an energy transition that is fast because it is fair: in other words, built on fair negotiations and true access to information; respect for human and environmental rights; and commitment to shared prosperity with mining-affected communities.

What is meaningful engagement? With this report, the Resource Centre analysed three emblematic cases of community engagement to begin to answer this question and highlight risks that the rush to mine transition minerals can pose to community engagement where the right to public participation is not safeguarded:

Pathways to meaningful engagement require, first and foremost, a clear and robust commitment by producing states to this process, including:

Companies themselves, as part of their duty to respect human rights, must also effect meaningful engagement with affected rightsholders. This means adopting robust engagement and due diligence policies which go beyond regulatory compliance requirements - which too often tragically fail to represent the views of the population, Indigenous Peoples, and other communities - where needed.

Companies must take urgent note that even with the apparent backing of the state, they may still remain complicit in, and potentially liable for, human rights abuses.