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Responsible mining companies, manufacturers and other mineral value chain actors and stakeholders have a common interest in ensuring that the negative social, economic and environmental impacts of mining are minimised, that its benefits are maximised and shared equitably, and that good practice is recognised and encouraged by industrial users of minerals, investors and consumers. Joining up their respective efforts across long, complex and opaque supply chains is a significant challenge, which may be hampered by misalignment between different actors' sustainability objectives and motivations. Discussions at two workshops convened by the Geological Society of London explored how barriers to progress might be addressed. These are reported and analysed in the context of several relevant bodies of literature. While assurance schemes and novel technologies can play a significant role in addressing these challenges, it is also vital to mobilise consumers' awareness of the mineral resources they use, work in partnership with communities affected by mining, urge policy-makers to take greater responsibility, and develop a shared vision of what a sustainable global system of mineral production and consumption should look like. Such a holistic perspective is necessary to avoid well-intentioned but fragmented approaches resulting in harmful unintended consequences, and in some aspects of sustainability being overlooked.

The debates about naming the unfolding times of anthropogenic global change the ‘Anthropocene’ are ultimately debates about the ‘human condition’. The proposal to amend the geological time scale by adding an ‘Anthropocene’ epoch (that is, the ‘Anthropocene proposal’ in its strict sense) is both an intra-geoscience debate about scientific sense-making and a debate about the societal context of the geosciences. This essay juxtaposes these debates, starting from three postulates: first, that the scientific methods of geological chronostratigraphy are applied rigorously; second, that anthropogenic global change is happening; and third, that the ‘Anthropocene proposal’ may be rejected if it does not meet the conditions required for its approval based on the rigorous application of the scientific methods of geological chronostratigraphy. These postulates are analysed through the lenses of the Cape Town Statement on Geoethics and the normative statements of the ‘geoethical promise’. It is found that an ethical quandary would arise if the ‘Anthropocene proposal’ were to be rejected. Consequently, and given the societal contexts of the geosciences, it is explored whether distinguishing between the geological past (as demarcated according to current chronostratigraphic methodology) and contemporary geological–historical times (characterised somewhat differently) could offer a work-around to tackle the quandary.

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