The plan, introduced at an industry forum this week in Australia, will involve 27 organisations from the mining industry including Caterpillar, Cummins, Epiroc, GE, Hexagon Mining, Hitachi, Komatsu, Liebherr, MacLean Engineering, PBE Group and Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology.

The programme's goals are three-fold, the first of which is reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

"The programme will promote operational and technological innovation to reduce net GHG emissions from mobile mining equipment to increase energy efficiency and GHG reduction technologies, with the ambition of achieving greenhouse gas-free surface mining vehicles by 2040," ICMM said.

The second ambition by the paired companies in the programme will be to reduce diesel particulate matter (DPM) emissions, progressing operational and technological innovations by 2025 that will minimise underground mining operations' impacts from DPM emissions.

Finally, the programme will promote collision-avoidance technology that can eliminate fatalities as a result of vehicle interactions (VI), making them available to mining companies by 2025.

ICMM said the initiative has gotten CEO-level support from all of the included mining companies and equipment manufacturers, a great beginning considering transport and mobile equipment accidents made up 22% of fatalities, a total of 11, at ICMM-operated mines last year.

Group chief executive Tom Butler said the programme will have benefits for all of mining, not just for its membership. It also invited other equipment manufacturers who would like to be part of the initiative.

"This new collaboration between ICMM and the world's leading mining equipment manufacturers will drive innovation to help us tackle global warming and improve mine safety," he said. "We hope that this ambitious programme will lead to the development of a new generation of cleaner safer vehicles.

"The launch of the ICSV programme is a practical example of how our members are mining with principles to tackle the major social and environmental issues that affect us all. This collaboration will deliver more together than any individual company could achieve on its own and shows how the metals and mining industry can act as a catalyst for change."

Caterpillar group president for resource industries Denise Johnson added that it saw the ambition of the programme from the outset.

"The collaboration between such a range of mining companies and suppliers can further the safety and environmental performance of mobile mining equipment," she said.

The programme will be guided by a CEO advisory group comprising six representatives, three from ICMM company members: Andrew Mackenzie (CEO, BHP), David Garofalo (CEO, Goldcorp) and Nick Holland (CEO, Gold Fields). Three others come from participating suppliers: Denise Johnson (group president of resource industries, Caterpillar), Max Moriyama (president, mining business division, Komatsu) and Lars Engström (president of Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology).