New sustainable mining companies are pioneering eco-friendly extraction methods and technologies to move the industry forward. Emphasizing reduced environmental impact, these innovators explore alternative mining practices, enhancing resource efficiency, and implementing renewable energy solutions. Their work marks a shift towards sustainability in mining, balancing economic growth with environmental preservation and social responsibility.
Continue reading to gain up-to-date and data-driven insights on:
- Profiles of 10 Emerging Sustainable Mining Companies
- How to Scout New Sustainable Mining Companies Easily
Key Takeaways
Drawing insights from the Big Data & AI-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform that provides data on over 4.7+ million emerging companies globally, we explore the evolving landscape of the sustainable mining industry. This sector is marked by key trends and a substantial workforce, shaping its future. Here are some key insights at a glance:
- Current Sustainable Mining Trends: The latest trends include net-zero operations, tailings management, sustainable supply chains, unmanned mining, and digital twins.
- Sustainable Mining Industry Stats: The sustainable mining sector comprises 3.1K+ organizations worldwide. On average, the industry employs about 27 people in 500+ new companies founded in the last five years, witnessing 2020 as the average founding year. Moreover, the average funding received by the solar energy industry in the same span is 49.5 million.
- 10 New Sustainable Mining Companies to Watch:
- RIINO – Monorail System
- Hypex Bio Explosives Technology AB – Nitrate-Free Emulsion Explosive
- REEgen – Microbial Extraction Process
- Olokun Minerals – Extraction from Brine Waste
- EcoBiome Metals – Microbial Technology
- Ionic Rare Earths – Magnet and Heavy Rare Earth Extraction
- Green Minerals – Seafloor Sulfide Deposit Extraction
- Minviro – Life Cycle Assessment
- Konker – Ore Piles Measurement
- Tersa Earth – Mining Waste Remediation
Meet 10 Out of 500+ New Sustainable Mining Companies
In this section, we spotlight the 10 best sustainable mining companies dedicated to transforming the sector. These innovators focus on minimizing environmental impact, enhancing resource efficiency, and promoting economic sustainability. Through technologies like low-impact extraction methods, waste reduction, and material recycling, they set new standards for responsible mining practices.
Note on Signal Strength
One of the unique metrics we feature for each company is Signal Strength, a proprietary data point generated by our Discovery Platform. It gauges the extent to which a company’s influence has permeated the global ecosystem of startups, scaleups, and emerging companies. This proprietary metric serves as a valuable guidepost for understanding a company’s standing in the broader market landscape.
1. RIINO
- Founding Year: 2019
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Canada
- Signal Strength: Medium
- What they do: RIINO develops a zero-emission monorail system for the mining industry. It features a fully automated and modular haulage system that reduces energy consumption and operational costs while enhancing safety. This solution addresses the industry’s challenges, including decarbonization and environmental impact. RIINO’s system benefits open-pit and underground mining operations, promoting more sustainable and efficient mining practices.
2. Hypex Bio Explosives Technology
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Sweden
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Hypex Bio Explosives Technology offers Hypex Bio, a nitrate-free emulsion explosive for sustainable mining and construction. It uses hydrogen peroxide as the primary oxidizer, offering an eco-friendly alternative to traditional explosives used during rock blasting operations. Hypex Bio thus reduces CO2 emissions, eliminates toxic NOx gas production, and prevents nitrate leaching. Designed for both underground and surface applications, Hypex Bio aligns with environmental and sustainability targets.
3. REEgen
- Founding Year: 2022
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: USA
- Signal Strength: Medium Strong
- What they do: REEgen develops a microbial process to extract rare earth elements (REEs) crucial for renewable energy. Gluconobacter oxydans, a type of acetic acid bacteria, generates organic acids that biodegrade and extract metals from geological materials. Utilizing Gluconobacter oxydans, REEgen enhances the efficiency of extracting REEs from low-grade sources. The company reduces carbon emissions and environmental damage associated with conventional methods. Also, it addresses the critical challenges of supply scalability, environmental degradation, and energy security.
4. Olokun Minerals
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: USA
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Olokun Minerals extracts minerals from brine waste, offering an environmentally friendly solution to traditional desalination byproducts harmful to marine life. Its multi-mineral continuous extraction technology targets underutilized minerals in brine streams. These streams include sources such as oil and gas fracking and e-waste recycling. Further, the company’s technology utilizes water for extraction instead of harmful chemicals, enhancing efficiency and reducing waste. This method, thus, makes brine mineral mining more resource and time-efficient.
5. EcoBiome Metals
- Founding Year: 2022
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: USA
- Signal Strength: Medium
- What they do: EcoBiome Metals specializes in biomining technology to extract elements like gold and lithium without harmful chemicals through its microbial product platforms. These platforms including Cultured Gold, Cultured Rare Earth, Ore Breaker, and Ore Breaker Heavy Metal Decomposer recover different metals such as gold, lithium, base metals, rare earth metals, and battery metals. Further, the company focuses on microbial discovery through its EcoBiome Discovery Port, encouraging novel species exploration. These approaches offer a greener, more effective solution for extracting valuable resources and tackling heavy metal pollution.
6. Ionic Rare Earths
- Founding Year: 2020
- Employee Range: 51-100
- Location: Australia
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Ionic Rare Earths advances the circular economy in the magnet and heavy rare earth extraction industry, focusing on mining, refining, and recycling. Its technology recycles rare earth elements from spent magnets. The method encompasses magnet crushing, digestion, and a 15-stage solvent separation, enabling the precipitation of individual oxides. These elements find applications in wind turbines, advanced manufacturing, defense, and electric vehicle motors.
7. Green Minerals
- Founding Year: 2020
- Employee Range: 11-50
- Location: Norway
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Green Minerals focuses on sustainable extraction of seafloor massive sulfide deposits. For this, the seafloor mining tools mix mined ore with seawater to transport it as a slurry. Further, the pressure exchange chamber lifts this slurry. It then transports it vertically to an ore carrier via a riser system, hoses connected through a disconnectable turret, and dewatered on the carrier. The slurry’s seawater is reused as hydraulic power. Upon reaching capacity, the turret disconnects itself and the empty ore carrier retrieves it. With this deepwater technology, Green Minerals assists in deep sea mining of minerals and rare earth elements.
8. Minviro
- Founding Year: 2019
- Employee Range: 11-50
- Location: UK
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Minviro quantifies the environmental impacts of mining through the life cycle assessment (LCA) software. This software considers every stage of the life cycle, including raw material extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal or recycling. By quantifying carbon footprints, water use, pollution, and other environmental impacts, LCA identifies areas for improvement and supports sustainable decision-making. It further assists geologists, mining engineers, mineral processors, and environmental scientists to inform product design, optimize processes, and communicate environmental credentials.
9. Konker
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 11-50
- Location: Brazil
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Konker measures ore piles of iron ore and oil and gas leveraging the attenuation effect of cosmic radiation muons. This method captures muon flow and its entry direction to enable detailed mapping. Further, it integrates pile characteristics into the mining operations’ IT systems and value chain. Designed for scalability, this sustainable approach to ore mass measurement enhances mines’ measurement capabilities.
10. Tersa Earth
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Canada
- Signal Strength: Strong
- What they do: Tersa Earth develops The Tersa Method, its technology that remediates mining waste and recovers metals. Utilizing microbial fuel cells, microbial carbonate precipitation, and bioprocess engineering, the company treats acid rock drainage (ARD) and recovers valuable metals from waste streams. This method replaces lime in ARD treatment, boosts mine production, and deploys self-powered modules for cost-effective remediation. Moreover, the company’s technology targets harmful substances to ease mine closure costs and improves mine life and performance through the removal of corrosive materials.
Quickly Find New Sustainable Mining Companies
Utilizing a SaaS platform like the Discovery Platform for identifying new sustainable mining companies provides significant benefits compared to traditional scouting methods:
- Streamlined Efficiency: The Discovery Platform offers advanced tools that streamline the scouting process. It replaces your hours of conventional desk research, saving time and resources in identifying sustainable mining innovations.
- Access to Real-time Insights: Gain a competitive edge with up-to-date information on the latest trends in the sustainable mining industry. The platform keeps you informed with near real-time updates on emerging sustainable mining companies and news, enabling you to make swift and informed decisions.
- Tailored Exploration: Customize your search to focus on specific niches within the sustainable mining sector, such as REE extraction, life cycle assessment, or ore piles measurement. The platform’s diverse filtering options allow you to target your scouting efforts precisely, ensuring that you find the most relevant and groundbreaking companies in the field.
Explore All Sustainable Mining Companies!
We’ve explored the dynamic landscape of the sustainable mining industry, examining the latest trends and spotlighting exceptional companies driving innovation. To dive deeper, download our free Clean Tech Report or schedule a demo of the Discovery Platform for a customized exploration of these groundbreaking developments.
