The survey of mining professionals from 29 countries, conducted by mining executive search and recruitment consultants Stratum International and independent environmental, social and governance accreditor Digbee, found that companies were putting effort into ESG but were lacking focus on gender and diversity.

Among companies' social priorities for 2022, gender and diversity ranked seventh and last behind (in order of importance) community relations, community health and safety, labour/industrial relations, human rights, cultural heritage and supply chain.

When asked about the top social priorities for the next 24 months, community relations was again deemed the most important, followed by community health and safety, labour/industrial relations, human rights, supply chain, cultural heritage and gender and diversity.

"While there was little change in social priorities, more concerning is the lack of focus on gender and diversity," the report said.

"Historically, women in mining are found in female-driven roles such as HR, finance, and law.

"If the sector hopes to attract more female engineers and geologists willing to work onsite, it needs to change the perception that mining is a male-only field. That starts with the youth: getting young girls interested in STEM from early in their school career.

"But if they have no female mining figures to aspire to, overcoming the gender and diversity gap in mining will be incredibly challenging."

More broadly, energy efficiency soared up the list of environmental priorities for the mining industry and now features in the top three for most companies, along with air and water pollution and waste management.

Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss were lower on the list of ESG factors for many mining businesses, according to the report.

"The mining industry has a unique opportunity to set a new standard for ESG globally and be seen as a hero rather than a villain," Stratum founder and director Will Coetzer said.

"Mining is critical to the energy transition. But businesses must put a solid ESG strategy at the centre of everything they do, in order to attract new pools of capital for the sector and turn the tide on low levels of investment.

"Without an ESG strategy, mining firms will be hard-pressed to secure funding and shareholder confidence, and talented mining professionals are unlikely to want to work for such businesses."

The report found that 2% of respondents did not think ESG was important.

For the rest, the biggest drivers for ESG were industry expectations (28%), pressure from stakeholders, investors and NGOs (26%), international standards related to ESG and sustainability (19%), and regulatory requirements (13%).

The survey showed that 71% of respondents considered ESG important in decision-making at board level, two-thirds thought it important to compare ESG credentials with others across the sector, and 63% thought an independent analysis of ESG credentials was important.

"There's huge pressure from industry, investors and other stakeholders for mining firms to be more transparent and report their ESG strategies," Digbee founder and CEO Jamie Strauss said.

"It's not enough to just set and communicate sustainable targets. It's also key to show how mining companies are progressing to, and achieving those goals.

"Failure to do so will negatively impact future investment opportunities. That's why the winners will be the ones who swiftly address potential risks and quickly seize the opportunities for ESG innovation."