This paper provides an introduction and an overview to this special issue of Minerals and Energy which focuses on the use of environmental valuation methods in the mining industry. It does this by, first of all, presenting some of the most important environmental impacts resulting from mining and minerals processing activities. Basic insights from the environmental economics literature, which provides the theoretical foundation for the most commonly used valuation techniques, are discussed. Against this background, we end the paper by briefly reviewing the remaining contributions to this special issue. We conclude by emphasizing that the views on the usefulness of most valuation methods are very diverse. This suggests that major research efforts that attempt to improve existing methods as well as develop new, perhaps multi-disciplinary, ones should be expected and indeed encouraged.