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MELBOURNE, June 15 (Reuters) - A global move to standardise reporting on environmental, social and governance issues could make the mining industry more investable and help attract talented graduates to the sector, private equity and industry sources said on Thursday.

The mining industry has struggled with some poor environmental and social legacies that have impacted its ability to recruit young talent for whom ESG issues are a major concern. As the industry improves its standards, proactive companies are likely to attract fresh capital, they said.

"One of the things that our investors look for, that is top of mind, now, is the whole ESG equation ... Standards are being raised around the world," said Owen Hegarty, executive chairman of resource-focused private equity firm EMR Capital, which holds some $5 billion under management.

"If you can have a shining ESG beacon in the night on your credentials ... you will certainly attract more capital than anyone else," he added, speaking at a mining conference in Melbourne.

New guidelines from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) are the start of a wave of standardisation that will allow investors to quantitatively assess the ESG credentials of companies by sector and which the mining industry will ultimately be mandated to follow, said Aletta Boshoff, national ESG lead at advisor BDO.

"Comparable information is what investors want," she said.

Private equity has already put together standardised metrics, said Lauren McGregor, director at Resource Capital Funds, which had $2.5 billion under management at the end of March.

RCF is one of more than 325 private equity houses that have signed up to the ESG Data Convergence Initiative, which is creating standardised ESG metrics for the PE industry. Its signatories have combined assets under management $27 trillion.

"If we lean into it, it's a chance to make mining as a sector more investable," she said.

The sector can improve by seeking out and meeting the expectations of stakeholders early, not just those of shareholders but also governments, regulators and communities.

Miners that have been successful in various remote locations already have many of these standards built into their core operations, EMR's Hegarty said.

"It doesnt matter if youre in the Atacama or the red dust of Mt Isa, or the rainforests of north Sumatra .... Youve got communities. If they are not there when you show up, they will arrive eventually and their expectations, their requirements change over time," he said.

Managing environmental and social risks can be expensive but miners needed to look into what advantages ESG compliance could bring, said Steve Morgan, principal at corporate advisory Automic ESG.

One nickel company Automic ESG was advising was offsetting the costs of lowering its carbon footprint against an expected premium for its more sustainable product, he said.

"There is an upside for projects that have the right ESG credentials," Morgan said.

Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Stephen Coates

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Standardised ESG reporting could help solve mining's image issues - Reuters