Watching the sites, not just auditing them.
Better Mining, created by RCS Global in 2018 and now run by SLR Consulting, places permanent monitors on individual artisanal cobalt, copper and 3T sites in Central Africa. They flag human-rights and safety risks in near-real time, track remediation, and feed verified data to downstream buyers.
Visit the programme pageContinuous presence instead of a snapshot.
Most assurance in mining is a periodic audit: an inspector visits, then leaves. Better Mining’s premise is that the risks that matter most on artisanal sites, child labour, accidents, the arrival of armed actors, are transient, so they need continuous presence. Locally recruited field agents, equipped with mobile tools, collect risk data day to day.
That data flows into a digital platform (now branded TRACE) that traces product from pit to refiner using security tags, analyses risk, assigns monthly corrective actions to mine operators and local stakeholders, tracks whether those actions are implemented, and shares the resulting evidence with downstream companies for their own due diligence.
The Responsible Minerals Initiative classes Better Mining as an "upstream mechanism" rated as fully aligned with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance. Crucially, it is a data-and-remediation layer, not a certification that a mine is "responsible": buyers keep their own due-diligence responsibility.
Risk, tracked to closure.
Child labour
The flagship category, including identification of worst forms and referral to remediation partners.
Health and safety
Pit safety, accidents and working conditions, with corrective actions tracked over time.
Human rights and security
Forced labour, exploitation, and the presence of armed actors or security forces on site.
Traceability
Chain-of-custody integrity with security tags, "pit to smelter", and a public tag-verification feature.
Environment
Site-level environmental risks recorded alongside social and governance indicators.
Governance
Transparency and governance risks at the mine, aligned to the OECD framework.
What the monitoring records.
Figures from SLR’s Better Mining Impact Report 2024 (the Jan–Dec 2024 cycle, published July 2025). The 7,862 incidents and 1,421 implemented or in-progress corrective actions are reported publicly; the 1,795 figure is drawn from the full report. Site counts drift between sources (27, 40+) and some self-reported numbers (240 child-labour cases) could not be independently verified. It reports incidents and corrective actions, not a fixed count of miners covered.
Active, and the data layer others rely on.
Better Mining is active under SLR, spanning the DRC (cobalt and copper), Rwanda (3T) and Madagascar (mica), running the TRACE platform and recognised by the RMI as an OECD-aligned upstream mechanism. Its closest tie in this register is the Fair Cobalt Alliance, which uses Better Mining data to target its on-site work at Kasulo and Kamilombe.
The honest caveats: monitoring is not certification. A field study of the Kasulo case (Mancini, Eslava, Traverso and Mathieux, “Assessing impacts of responsible sourcing initiatives for cobalt”, Resources Policy, 2021) found the risk categories are set by downstream buyers and omit what miners themselves prioritise, notably fair pricing and gender, while noting the programme is effective at what it does target: life-threatening conditions, child labour and corruption. And many supporters are also buyers of the monitored cobalt, the familiar independence question for industry-funded monitoring.
A consultancy, with downstream supporters.
Operated by SLR Consulting (which acquired RCS Global in 2022), in strategic partnership with the Responsible Minerals Initiative. Supporters are largely downstream buyers and battery-chain companies.
CMOC
IXM
Fair Cobalt AllianceNamed supporters and partners across disclosures; the UNICEF child-rights collaboration is financed by Germany’s BMZ. The exact funding mix (subscriptions, RMI co-funding, partner contributions) is not public.
From launch to SLR.
- 2018
RCS Global launches Better Mining, with Huayou Cobalt a foundational partner.
- 2020
A strategic partnership with the Responsible Minerals Initiative scales the DRC cobalt and copper programme.
- 2021
CMOC and IXM join as supporters; a UNICEF collaboration produces a child-labour-prevention toolkit.
- 2022
SLR Consulting acquires RCS Global; the programme becomes "Better Mining by SLR" and is rated fully aligned with OECD guidance.
- 2024
TRACE 2.0 rolls out; the 2024 cycle is led by a 47% rise in assured 3T (tin-tantalum-tungsten) volumes from Rwanda and the DRC, and the programme expands to Madagascar’s mica sector.
More initiatives, mapped and tracked.
Better Mining is one of dozens of programmes in the ASM cobalt space. Browse the full register, or tell us what is missing.