Issue Brief: Disclosing environmental information in the natural resource sector

Local communities can suffer from negative social and environmental impacts associated with the establishment and operation of oil, gas, and mining projects. These impacts include land use conflicts, lack of water availability, water and soil contamination, air pollution, erosion, involuntary displacement, and social problems. Nevertheless, governments often do not provide communities with timely and useful information on the industry in terms of siting, mitigation, permitting, monitoring, and reclamation. Opportunities for public consultation during the regulatory process and the ongoing provision of information over time is also often lacking.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) offers an opportunity for governments to mitigate these negative impacts by making commitments on the proactive disclosure of social and environmental information related to the extractive industry. This issue brief aims to provide an overview of current standards and practices, and outline concrete examples of environmental disclosure commitments for consideration by governments and civil society organizations.