The awareness of the importance of sustainable development within mining has increased significantly over the past years．Social pressures，quick spreading of the idea due to globalisation and last but not least the fact that sustainable development can be aligned with commercial obj ects finds a growing number of mining companies implementing sustainable development into their company policy．While large and internationally acting companies are the leaders，one finds an increasing number of sustainability initiatives on the regional and local level as well．In order to implement the idea of sustainability into companies policies it is necessary to understand and interpret the idea of sustainable development in the context of mining and metals．Goals that can be measured have to be defined and the trend towards achieving these goals has to be assessed and reported．This is done by using indicators．Following the principle of sustainable development can amount to added value in a company．In many fields of activities of a mining company sustainability will lead to technically sound and financially profitable projects．This includes coal gas control technology．