Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) risks are now considered more and more by investors as risks that can be financially material. If dealt with in a proactive way, these risks can also enhance long-term company value (UNEP-FI and WBCSD, 2010; Edmans, 2011). This raising awareness led to recent efforts on the company side to understand these risks better, quantify them in monetary terms and internalise them into core business.ESG factors can play a particularly strong role in the development of mining projects. The early stages of development of a mine are the most vulnerable. When a project is at its infancy and revenues have not yet been generated, potential opponents can more easily contest it and cause delays, or even compromise the project (Frank et al. 2014). During these early stages, dramatic changes can occur for the communities living near or within the mining lease, providing fuel for conflicts to spark and amplify.The Complex Orebodies Database project presented here seeks to establish a global database of pre-production mining projects and their associated ESG risks. Such work provides an overview of the future of mining, and of the risks that will have to be faced in order to meet the ever-rising demand for metals. CITATION:Lebre, E, Valenta, R K, Kemp, D, Owen, J R and Corder, G D, 2019. Complex orebodies: the role of social and environmental complexities in current mine projects development, in Proceedings 9th International Conference on Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry, pp 114117 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).