Turning Gold Green

Miranda Werstiuk ’85 is committed to making mining more sustainable

FOR SOME PEOPLE, THE PHRASE “SUSTAINABLE MINING” MAY SEEM LIKE AN OXYMORON. Not for Miranda Werstiuk ’85. Outgoing and personable, Miranda is a corporate finance and investment banking professional specializing in the resource sector. And she is fervent in her belief that the mining industry can become more environmentally sustainable and socially responsible.

That’s why one trip to South America left her with a particularly vivid memory. For over 25 years, Miranda has travelled the globe seeing first-hand how mining companies of all sizes run their operations, from greenfield exploration to development through to production. In 2009, while visiting a gold exploration project in the jungles of Colombia that needed new funding, she observed artisanal and small-scale goldmining (ASGM) practices.

“I saw a man using his bare hands to scoop a mixture of mercury and ore out of a vat,” Miranda recalls. “He was using the elemental mercury to extract gold from the surrounding material. Even if these local miners knew about the dangers to themselves, their families and the entire ecosystem, their focus was on day-today existence.” Large-scale gold mining companies do not use mercury, but instead rely on cyanidation, a chemical process using a weak cyanide solution, and subsequent separation of the materials. The use of mercury persists, however, in over 70 countries where unregulated and illegal ASGM operations can lead to potentially fatal mercury poisoning.

Despite a schedule already seemingly full to capacity, Miranda’s commitment to making the industry more sustainable motivated her to become an external advisor to the planetGOLD Program. With the support of the UN and other partners, it is helping countries meet their obligations under the Minamata Convention on Mercury.

The 2013 treaty—named after the Japanese city where severe mercury poisoning was first identified in the 1950s—aims to significantly reduce or eliminate global mercury use. Focusing on the ASGM sector, the planetGOLD initiative is helping miners adopt cleaner techniques, improving their access to financing and supporting efforts to integrate them into the formal economy and regulatory systems.

There are other signs that mining is changing. Miranda says refineries, where precious metals are extracted and separated, are increasingly demanding that the minerals they process are ethically sourced. That is leading to new technologies and protocols for traceability and transparency from mine to manufactured goods. Mining companies are now also taking responsibility for the entire life cycle of their projects, Miranda adds. This begins with meeting the people living near a potential mine to determine their wants and needs well before work ever begins on the site. “There is a whole social, environmental and economic ecosystem already in place in these locations,” she says. “We have to engage with all the stakeholders from the very start to be successful in building sustainable mines.”

While she now proudly calls herself a “mining chick,” that was never her original intent. After graduating from HSC, she attended Queen’s University in Kingston where she studied biology and, as she had done at HSC, made a large circle of friends. Through them she met her future husband, Colin Climie, who was studying electrical engineering at Queen’s.

The couple are long-time residents of the Beach, an old Toronto neighbourhood with houses that started life as cottages, where they’re raising two daughters. Neve, 18, is studying engineering at Queen’s while Sloane, 13, looks poised to break with family tradition and pursue a future in the arts.

Colin has used his education as a patent agent and as a part-time professor at York University. Miranda, however, says that by the time she’d earned her BSc, she’d lost interest in a career in biology. With that, she returned home to attend McMaster University where both her parents were professors, one in the chemistry department and the other in the biochemistry, biology and pharmacology departments.

Both had grown up in families from Eastern Bloc countries. Miranda recalls her mother, Eva, describing how her family had cut through a barbed wire fence to make their getaway from Hungary during the revolution in 1956. Her father was born in Alberta, where his parents were homesteading after leaving Ukraine in the early 1920s. The two eventually met and married in Baltimore, Maryland, moving first to London, England, where they had Miranda, and then to Hamilton, where her brother Nick was born.

“We were told that we

didn’t have to be the best at something. We just had to show up and have fun.”

At McMaster, Miranda studied anthropology, earning a four-year BA in just two years. She was now armed with two undergrad degrees, but still no clear vocational purpose. Then, as these things sometimes happen, her experiences in a series of mostly forgettable jobs led to a contract position with Toronto-based IBK Capital Corp.—where she stayed for the next 25 years. IBK Capital is an independent Canadian investment banking firm with clients in mining, renewable energy and technology. Miranda rounded out her formal education with a variety of business courses from the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University and finance industry-specific courses. With older daughter Neve This past February, Miranda—always keen on a new challenge—joined OCIM Precious Metals, a division of Paris-based OCIM Finance. While still living in Toronto, she is assisting the privately held company in building its resource company investment portfolio.

As well as being business savvy, Miranda is a consummate networker highly regarded in resource finance circles for her ability to bring together the best people for any given project. It’s something she enjoys doing. “I’m a good people person,” she says simply.

In fact, making and maintaining connections through volunteering, mentoring and public speaking at conferences worldwide is something to which she devotes considerable time and effort. She is co-vice chair of the Toronto branch of Women in Mining (WIM) and is a member of both WIM UK and iWIM, all dedicated to making mining more inclusive. Having had type 1 diabetes for nearly 50 years, she has volunteered for the Canadian Diabetes Association, Women’s College Hospital and Toronto General Hospital, supporting those living with diabetes.

Miranda traces being active on so many fronts to the value system at HSC that encourages students to participate in a range of extracurricular activities. “We were told that we didn’t have to be the best at something,” she says. “We just had to show up and have fun.” (The halls of HSC are lined with sports trophies attesting to the fact she did more than show up.)

Her parents, who put a premium on education, ensured that she and her brother attended both elementary and secondary school at HSC. Miranda began honing her interpersonal skills in kindergarten, usually referred to in fiveyear-olds as making friends. She remains friends with many of them to this day, particularly with one tight-knit group. They talk frequently and get together whenever possible, even though five of them are spread across the GTA and the sixth lives in Vancouver.

Whether she’s talking about a disadvantaged Colombian miner, her family or her wide circle of friends, it’s clear Miranda cares deeply. You could even say she’s a miner with a heart of gold.