LONDON: The London Bullion Market Asso­ciation (LBMA), which sets standards for the worlds most established gold market, needs to do more to exclude gold linked to human rights abuses or criminality from its supply chain, rights groups said on Monday.

Refineries vetted by the LBMA still source gold from questionable suppliers and mines and are not tackling serious human rights violations and environmental degradation,“ a collection of eight organisations that analyse mining, led by Swissaid, said in a letter to the LBMA, seen by Reuters.

In an emailed statement in response to questions, the LBMA said it looked forward to discussing various proposals at an event in London later this week.

The LBMA, which governs access to the world’s largest bullion market, has, in common with other organisations, established initiatives to try to prevent problematic gold from passing through the LBMAs refiners and into the vaults of banks.

One of these is the LBMAs Good Delivery List (GDL), which catalogues refiners the body considers responsible sources of gold because of the due diligence systems they have in place.

Once accepted into a vault as Good Delivery, gold can be freely traded between players on the gold market.

The NGOs said that there had been some slight improvements in the LBMAs systems since 2021, but that many refiners on list have, in recent years, sourced gold from suppliers linked to money laundering, land and water pollution, or human rights abuses.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2024