Moving mountains: the case of Antamina Mining Company

The Antamina Mining Company (Compania Minera Antamina, or CMA) is the world's 3rd largest producer of zinc, 7th of copper, and the largest combined operation for both minerals. This Peruvian company, whose operations are located between 4,200 and 4,700 m.a.s.l., is a leader in environmental and social responsibility. Although CMA was a fairly new company (the exploration and construction phases of the mining operations took place between 1997 and 2001, the year in which the production phase began), it had to face a series of complex challenges in order to become an economically viable organization that was both socially and environmentally responsible. Meeting these objectives has implied developing institutional capacities (conflict resolution, management of adverse social contexts, multiculturalism, self-learning, and innovation) that normally appear much later in a company's evolution. Shows some of the typical challenges that managers must face when engaging in large-scale initiatives. CMA's executives worked with tight deadlines and in a high-risk context to make quick decisions whose consequences would have long-term implications, since they would determine the type of relations the company would maintain with diverse stakeholders. In order to make these decisions, they had to establish priorities among at least three distinct logics: i) that of construction and production, where tight time limits, engineers' technical criteria, and cost reduction predominate; ii) the environmental logic, where caution predominates along with impact assessment and an active international community of stakeholders; and iii) the community-based logic, where to co-exist with the primarily indigenous and poor peasant families directly affected by the project it is necessary to obtain a so-called "social license". This phase took place in a context in which CMA had the pressing need to secure financing from international banks.