Open pit mining is increasingly executed within binding environmental, social and governance (ESG) constraints that influence pit geometry, sequencing, dewatering regimes, energy systems, and material movement design – not merely cost line-items. Under modern disclosure, permitting expectations and more contemporary sustainability corporate policy, ESG performance permeates the full project life cycle, from evaluation and operations through to closure and post-mining transition. In conventional optimisation workflows, net present value (NPV) is typically maximised first, with environmental impacts subsequently addressed through cost provisions. By contrast, when considered from the outset, ESG baselines operate as binding constraints that can compress schedules, create exposure to carbon credit liabilities, or limit the extent of disturbance expansion. The implication is fundamental: ESG performance criteria must be integrated into strategic design frameworks, rather than treated as closure contingencies or external cost modifiers applied after optimisation. AMC’s experience across strategy optimisation in open pit to underground transition studies demonstrates that when emissions, water intensity, and disturbed area trajectories are embedded directly within optimisation, materially different life-of-mine strategies emerge. This proposed approach now lends itself to switching the focus to how open pits can remain safe, technically, environmentally and economically viable, and socially acceptable within ESG-bound operating environments, rather than advocating a mining method change.