"It was a stimulating and successful experience," said Sir Robert Wilson, chairman of London-based mining giant Rio Tinto Plc and chairman of the conference, in a closing speech that was endorsed by many on both sides of the fence.

"We were engaged and engaged thoroughly," Wilson added, referring to "the spirit of Toronto."

"The barriers of mistrust are starting to erode."

Not for all, however. Several big miners and many small ones did not participate in the conference. Nor did Greenpeace and several other environmental groups - each side seemingly unwilling to sleep with the enemy.

Nor was the lack of binding commitment to push the industry to a sustainable model satisfactory to all.

This week, Fred Higgs, an executive at the Brussels-based 300,000-member International Federation of Chemical, Mine and General Workers, told the conference he thoroughly expected a concrete action plan to emerge at its end. He didn't get one.

"What I'd suggest to them now is that they make sure to get it done before Johannesburg," Higgs told Reuters yesterday.

One of the aims of the conference was to point the way forward for the industry - which now willingly admits to a poor reputation on environmental and social issues - as it prepares for the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August.

The basis for discussion was a $9 million report commissioned by, but independent of, a group of 28 big companies.

The report presented at the conference, entitled "Mining, Minerals and Metals for Sustainable Development", paints a bleak picture of mining's history - a legacy of poorly developed mines and processing facilities that have left a trail of social despair and environmental destruction in their wake.

It sets out a series of guidelines to serve as an agenda for change and describes minimum environmental, health, safety, social and ethical standards.

It seeks a commitment to tackle past pollution hot spots and areas that would be off limits to the mining and metals industry because of environmental or cultural concerns.

The companies involved in the initiative, including such giants as Alcan Inc. , Anglo American , Noranda Inc. , and BHP Billiton , earlier set up a council headed by Doug Yearly, chairman emeritus of Phelps Dodge Corp. , to turn the results of the conference and the report's conclusions into action.

Yearly told the conference yesterday that his group, the International Council on Mining and Metals, was committed to working with all stakeholders to bringing sustainable development to the sector.

He issued a declaration late yesterday, called the Toronto Declaration, that included details on initiatives to be taken in the months to come, including making the business case for sustainability and setting performance standards and third-party audits.

"While we all know that mining, minerals and metals are essential to modern life, our sector has a poor reputation around the world. Our right to operate is under threat," Yearly told the conference.

"We stand at a crossroads. A crossroads where we have an opportunity that will happen only once in our lifetime: to leave the past behind and move forward into a new era."

Several CEOs, however, warned that shareholders will be impatient if the move to sustainability comes with high costs and low returns.

"(The industry) has earned less than our source of capital for many, many years," said Brian Gilbertson, chief executive of BHP Billiton. "And if the cashbox is shut by shareholders, the money for new projects will not be there. There must be a return for shareholders."

But Rio Tinto's Wilson told Reuters there is a sea change in the industry.