Gold is considered responsible if it meets two criteria: actors must comply with the standards, and the material. must be traceable. The standard applies only where both criteria are met, at every stage, from extraction to refining.
To call gold responsible is to make two claims : one about its actors and one about its material.
The first claim is carried through by systematic miner onboarding and continuous due diligence. The second claim is carried by traceability, which involves recording a chemical signature for each producer, at the point of entry, and matching this against every lot that subsequently moves through the chain. This discipline is progressive but non negotiable: there is a fminimum requirement at the outset, an audited trajectory over time, and a measurable effect on the ground.
This issue is most acute in the ASM chain, which has become the main way of using gold money laundering through material substitution in otherwise documented chains. Industrial mining falls under a separate framework, with different dominant risks and a different normative lineage.
The definition of responsible gold has evolved over the last twenty years, with each stage building on the previous one.
The 'responsible gold' designation can be claimed by two types of model.
Redistributive model
Transformative model
The chain comprises three links, each with its own set of requirements. Failure at any one of these links disqualifies the whole chain.
01
The mining site and ecosystem, where the ore is extracted.
Documented and audited mercury phase out trajectory with a deadline. Worker safety measured by published, comparable incident data. Strict absence of child labour, a binary condition that admits no progressivity.
Greenhouse gas emissions, scopes 1 and 2, measured and engaged in a reduction trajectory. Water consumption and recirculation rate. Biodiversity protection or restoration at the operational perimeter.
02
The reality of the relationship between the miner and the processing plant.
Fair and transparent pricing audited by a third party, without excessive discount on the international reference price. The condition for formalisation to translate into real value for the producer.
Access to concrete services: training, accident insurance coverage. Active technical assistance formalised in joint action plans covering administrative formalisation, health and safety, and environmental practices.
03
From ore to doré, from doré to refined bar.
Mercury separation at intake: any naturally occuring mercury in the incoming ore is recovered before cyanidation, to prevent the co-processing of mercury with cyanide. Strict segregation of lots by producer, continuous volume reconciliation. The same ESG categories that apply at extraction transpose integrally. Centralised processing is the dominant form of compliance, whereas in-situ amalgamation cannot meet these requirements.
Codified by the LBMA Responsible Gold Guidance, version 9 in force since January 2022. Segregation of the melt: no mixing of traced doré with unverified sources, ideally confirmed by chemical signature on input and output material. The RGG codifies for accredited refiners a set of risks that mirror the categories applied at extraction.
The proof apparatus rests on two complementary mechanisms. Compliance qualifies the actor, through onboarding, due diligence and sanctions screening. Traceability qualifies the material, through chemical fingerprinting and cross-check against the supplier's registered profile.
Pillar 1
Pillar 2
Three converging factors give the definition a pressing character. The window in which a demanding standard can install itself as the sector reference is open.
The historic rise in the gold price amplifies the attractiveness of informal mining and the expansion of illicit channels.
The burden of proof shifts onto buyers. A refiner, a bank, or a jeweller can no longer rely on not knowing.
Verification of origin and blockchain immutability of data make operationally possible what was previously declarative only.
Responsible ASM gold is gold whose entire chain meets verifiable requirements through a mechanism combining compliance and traceability. The standard is progressive: a non negotiable floor of rules at entry, an audited trajectory over time and a measurable effect on the ground. Three levels structure the chain: extraction practices, the commercial relationship with the producer and processing and refining. The absence of one disqualifies the whole.
Responsible gold is the actual state of the chain: documented, verifiable and continuously maintained. Certification is what makes that state opposable and credible to third parties. Certification does not substitute for responsible practices, but it makes them defensible.
No. Around 85% of artisanal and small-scale gold production remains outside formal supply chains, without documented compliance or verified origin. The qualification applies only where every link meets defined requirements: mercury free extraction, fair commercial terms with the producer, closed loop processing and physical traceability. Making responsible ASM institutional means reducing the untraced share.
Informal ASM operates without full administrative documents but within a legal framework that provides a formalisation pathway. In Peru, REINFO allows such miners to sell legally to accredited buyers. Illegal ASM operates outside any legal framework, on concessions without title, sometimes in prohibited zones or even linked to criminal economies. A plant can buy from the informal miner in formalisation, under REINFO, KYC and on-site verification. It cannot buy from the illegal operator.
A redistributive model buys gold while allowing externalities at the source (mercury, informality, unsafe conditions) and compensates afterward, through community funds or downstream certifications. A transformative model eliminates those externalities as a prerequisite for purchase, not as an after the fact correction. Redistributive mechanisms may then reinforce the transformation. Responsible gold requires the second.
Recycled gold and untraced gold occupy distinct positions relative to responsible gold. Recycled gold has already circulated, melted from jewellery or coins. Its origin as mined material cannot be traced. Untraced gold is mined gold whose chain of custody was not documented, the majority of ASM production. Responsible gold is actively brought into a documented, audited chain.
Mercury persists in ASM because it captures fine gold without capital or infrastructure. Individual amalgamation using mercury recovers only 30 to 40% of contained gold. Responsible plants displace it with two levers. Economic: closed circuit cyanidation recovers over 90%, so the miner earns more by selling raw ore. Control: onboarding admits only miners committed to mercury free extraction, and every lot is analysed for mercury signatures. Cyanide, that is used in responsible processing plants, operates in closed-circuit leaching tanks, where its concentration, volumes and treated effluents are measurable and auditable on site. Unlike mercury, which vaporises, travels through the atmosphere and bioaccumulates in food chains far from the extraction site, cyanide degrades rapidly and remains within the operational perimeter of the plant.
Verification rests on two independent mechanisms. Compliance qualifies the actors: upstream KYC transposed from banking, more than twenty documents per supplier (identity, ownership, mining title, tax, environmental), screened against sanctions lists. Traceability qualifies the material: chain of custody, chemical fingerprinting at plant intake, comparison of every lot against the supplier’s profile. Discrepancies are flagged in real time.
Large scale mining is already integrated into institutional supply chains: LBMA accredited, documented, subject to OECD Due Diligence Guidance. Artisanal and small-scale mining is the reverse: over 20% of global gold, twenty million livelihoods, yet less than 1% of LBMA Good Delivery throughput. The compliance and traceability infrastructure that exists for LSM is largely absent from ASM. That is the gap OCIM operates in.
Partnership aims to support ASGM formalization, strengthen supply chain integrity, and expand pathways to market for responsibly produced gold
Ivan Salas, Country Manager of Soleil Metals, OCIM’s Peruvian subsidiary, discusses the field reality of responsible gold in Peru on the occasion of the LBMA and World Gold Council Sustainability & Responsible Sourcing Summit, held in London from 17 to 19 June 2026.
Responsible gold has become a concrete subject. This is the implicit conclusion of the report recently published by Swiss Better Gold (SBG), which makes legible an institution that documents itself, opens its governance and articulates its economic thesis with growing clarity.
