Cultural Infusion has developed the Diversity Atlas that can give miners the base line data they need to better build cultural diversity programs. 

CI CEO Peter Mousaferiadis said mining companies needed to recognise that diversity could win for them as an organisation.

"Mining companies work in some of the most diverse places across the globe," he said.

However, this diversity can provide a challenge to them.

"They can have diverse workforces but they don't often represent the community they work in," he said.

"Mining organisations struggle to attract women."

Mousaferiadis said 15.7% of the workforce were women.

"So what can they do to strive for gender parity?" he asked.

"It will take a long time."

Mousaferiadis said mining companies needed to think about how they created diversity across the organisation.

"They need to get women into key leadership positions," he said.

"If they can't, they have to ask why. The need to take a data-driven approach and develop strategies from that.

"That way they can make the organisation more equitable and representative of their communities."

Mousaferiadis said in the wider business community 38% of all senior management roles were filled by women.

"That is not represented in mining," he said.

Greater indigenous representation is another challenge miners face.

"In 2001 the Australian Bureau of Statistics had the figure of 0.01% of mining were Indigenous women," Mousaferiadis said.

"It's about creating pathways. If you can diversify the workforce and make it more representative, mining companies can benefit. They can get the best innovation."

Mousaferiadis said CI's Diversity Atlas was being used by the likes of Amazon to map its global workforce.

"They realise that when their organisations represent the community they are in the have better health outcomes," he said.

Mousaferiadis said the scientific approach to diversity should fit well with most mining companies.

After all, they are highly science driven. Their world is all about minerals and elements.

"Mining companies should be leading the way," Mousaferiadis said.

"They have the best scientists.

"How can they apply this scientific approach to diversity?"

Mousaferiadis said miners needed to take a more in depth look at the communities they were operating in.

"If you go into a community, you are not just seeing all the people as indigenous," he said.

"You need to be taking a deeper dive into their ethnicity. What language do they speak? How am I connecting with these people? How am I connecting with their elders?

"You need to be able to understand people better. You are not going to be able to buy people with money. It's about the ability to relate to the other. You need to understand the lens they look at the world through.

"It's utterly important to be building socially inclusive communities."

It is not just about the social licence to operate either.

Mining companies want innovation. Diversity is a way to get it.

"When I think of diversity I think of it further than just social inclusion," Mousaferiadis said.

"I look at innovation.

"Innovation is the diversification of ideas.

"In the city of Jeddah [in Saudi Arabia] they are building the first carbon neutral desalination plant. There are lots of cultures working on that.

"The greatest resource humanity has is our diversity and, particularly, our cultural diversity.

"Within a place like Australia, how many different cultures do we have?"

There is a cost to getting the diversity and cultural communication piece wrong.

"The cost of conflict equates to about 13-14% of the world's gross domestic product," Mousaferiadis said.

"In terms of dollars you can work out what conflict costs.

"The only thing that is going to save humanity now is us moving to a cultural re-evaluation that takes an anthropological approach that goes way beyond our need to move into the age of culture.

"The world has become super diverse.

"Think how we communicated pre-1989. Think how communication is done today. The ability to understand the other has become more important."

Mousaferiadis said while the explosion of social media could pose threats to miners, it could also drive cooperation and innovation.

"We're all global citizens," he said.

"There are 5 billion of us connected to the world wide web.

"How do we create a sense of one-ness?"