Technology Gaps in Global Gold Production : A Mine-Level Carbon Dioxide Emissions Adjusted Efficiency Analysis

This paper analyses the gold sector's environmentally-adjusted (carbon dioxide – CO 2 emissions) efficiency using cross-sectional global mine-level data from 2019. We use a meta-frontier approach to compute mine level efficiency under different technologies and environments (e.g., open pit vs. underground). The results show significant disparities in performance both at the mine level and across countries. We note a considerable variation in mines efficiency ranking when CO 2 emissions are accounted for in the production activities. Further, we adopt meta frontier methods to compute technology gaps in mining under different mining production environments. The technology gap appears to be higher for mines operating underground than mines operating under open-pit methods. We also notice that countries having renewable energy usage in mining operations exhibit an improved environmental efficiency. The findings suggest that enhanced technology and effective management of mine-level operating systems could help mitigate carbon emissions and increase mining productivity