Beyond mine closure: Permitting for new projects

At a glance

When it comes to mining, embedding closure, long-term stewardship and asset transition into design can help ease the permit approval process and align with updated regulations and community expectations.

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Design with closure in mind

Closure criteria can define conditions for the safe end and turnover of a mine. Integrating these criteria early in the design phase demonstrates foresight and alignment with environmental and social obligations. The permitting agency becomes aware that you have considered the potential positive and negative impacts of a project.

Examples of showcasing closure in the design phase include balancing materials for cover systems, planning waste placement for water quality and keeping options open for post-closure land use.

Treating closure criteria as design inputs and not afterthoughts reduces late redesign, cost escalation, schedule delays and approval risk. 

Engage rightsholders and stakeholders early

Rightsholders and stakeholders are the co-designers of mines and the ones that stand to benefit most from a good closure system. This expands the scope of permitting from being purely technical.

Aligning each group’s commitments and roles earlier in the process helps improve chances of approval. It lowers the risk for roadblocks and future disagreements brought about by miscommunication and lack of structure. Our teams routinely pair technical studies with structured engagement programs to embed social insight into design and permit conditions. 

Use impact assessment as a planning tool

Impact assessments often form part of the permitting process, but they can do more. When revisited throughout a mine’s lifecycle, they become powerful management tools.  Instead of leaving findings to gather dust on the shelves, we can use them to guide alternatives analysis, mitigation hierarchy and residual effects management.

In environmental planning and impact assessment, we apply two techniques so we can make transparent trade-offs on environmental performance:

• Optioneering — exploring and comparing different options systematically to find the most suitable solution to avoid or mitigate potential effects.
• Multi-criteria appraisal — scoring options against agreed criteria to generate a ranked result to support decision-making.

These insights not only facilitate our clients ability to make choices but also help us communicate choices openly with regulators, rightsholders and community members.

Read about impact assessment as a planning tool in this project case study where GHD helped secure environmental approvals for a gold mine development.

Environmental permitting focus areas

Across jurisdictions, several technical themes shape permitting discussions including:

• Water: As one of the most important permitting concerns, regulators expect comprehensive water balances and clearly defined treatment contingencies from concept through closure.
• Legacy contamination: Districts with historic mines and related contamination seek credible remediation commitments, long-term monitoring and proof of environmental improvement.
• Species at risk and their habitats: Early identification of critical or sensitive habitats can inform avoidance, minimization and compensation design.
• Cumulative effects: Regulators want to see how mitigation aligns with broader land use goals and development plans.

Incorporating these interests in early planning strengthens permit applications. We use digital tools like GIS, LiDAR and predictive modeling to improve workflows, refine baselines, test scenarios and clearly communicate potential effects.

Building a resilient permitting strategy

Permitting is a journey that rewards foresight, flexibility and partnership. By integrating closure as early as the conceptual stage, meaningfully engaging with rightsholders and communities and using impact assessment to improve design, we can navigate complex approvals and set the foundation for resilient operations.

Read more in our Beyond mine closure report, which also explores mine closure, asset transitioning, social closure and impact assessment.