1709 mining and extractive project settings. It also synthesizes the methods used to translate SDG concepts into indicators, assessment frameworks, governance instruments, and evaluation practices. The review process follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework (Page et al., 2021), which establishes a transparent protocol for identifying, screening, and selecting relevant studies. As illustrated in Figure 1, the PRISMA procedure involved three primary stages: identification, screening, and eligibility assessment. These stages facilitated systematic retrieval, the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the refinement of the final corpus analyzed in this review. Figure 1 – Refinement process and publication counts (PRISMA framework) Scopus was selected as the primary database for this systematic review because of its reliability, comprehensive coverage, and frequent use in sustainability research. A targeted search in January 2026 combined SDG terminology with mining and extractive-sector keywords to identify studies relevant to SDG localization, operationalization, and assessment in project contexts. The search was restricted to peerreviewed journal articles in English published between 2015 and 2026. Additional source-title filters prioritized leading journals in mining, sustainability, and environmental governance, such as Resources Policy, The Extractive Industries and Society, Environmental Science & Policy, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Sustainability. The full search query and parameters are reported in Table 1. Screening was conducted in two steps. First, titles and abstracts were reviewed to retain papers that explicitly addressed SDG localization, implementation, operationalization, assessment, or reporting with relevance to mining or extractive projects, while excluding studies limited to national or global SDG reporting without transferable mining project-level methods and non-research formats. Second, full texts were assessed for eligibility based on the following criteria: (i) original research, (ii) a clear focus on SDG localization in mining or extractive contexts, and (iii) provision of a defined and transferable methodological or analytical approach. Purely descriptive or narrative discussions were excluded. This process reduced the initial pool of 300 records to 95 full-text articles and resulted in 47 eligible studies for synthesis. To improve completeness, backward and forward snowballing were applied by reviewing reference lists and citation tracking in Google Scholar, identifying eight additional studies that met the same criteria. The final corpus comprised 55 studies. The identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion process is summarized in the PRISMA flow diagram (Figure 1).
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