Today mining companies suffer strong pressure from organizations such as environmental groups, multilateral agencies, national governments, mining associations and the international media, to comply with “good environmental practices” and to face the new and important challenges imposed by the exploitation of deposits, of increasingly lower-grade ore, deepness and difficulty, and to integrate community issues in their decision making process.This article seeks to show the contribution that the development of environmental and social performance indicators and sustainability markers in the mining companies have in achieving sustainable development.This is especially useful in a developing country like Colombia which has adopted a sustainable development economic model and where the mining sector has lead exportations and economy, but has also been responsible of big environmental damages and important social conflicts. Additionally, this work reports the existence of technologies and methodologies, e.g. those recommended by the Federal Environmental Agency of Germany, to design integrated sets of proven biophysical, economic and social indicators, including the conventional indicators of the mining process: input-outcome, capacity building, well being and participation, to be used in performance evaluation and optimization, cost-benefit analysis and strategic decision making, participative planning and progress monitoring, according to Alyson Warhurst (1997) in the Mining and Environmental Research Programme of the Bath University.