London Metal Exchange (LME) chief executive Matthew Chamberlain has told the Mining Journal Stakeholder Engagement programme the LME's responsible sourcing rules introduced late last year would require members to follow "hard and fast rules" in line with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development principles, which will provide users on the platform with "clarity".

And he said rather than members objecting to the implied increase in administrative costs associated with additional compliance measures, they had been generally grateful for a standard that uniformly addressed the concerns of end users who were asking these questions anyway.

"We speak to [members] who say, 'I get a bespoke form from each of my customers wanting me to fill in this information or that information' - there is already a huge effort, rightly, to understand what is going on in supply chains," Chamberlain said in the podcast interview.

"And, so, I think there's been this change in perception that, actually, by the LME taking this on and embedding it in the brand listing requirements, we'll get to a place where in the same way if you're an LME brand everyone trusts your metallurgical quality ... people trust your ethical quality."