Access to Resources
Access to resources is fundamental to the sustainability of our business. Our challenge is to achieve access to the resources relevant to our scope of operations while addressing heightened political and societal expectations related to obtaining and maintaining a 'licence to operate'.
Human Rights
We must identify, understand and manage requirements associated with the fact that prospective developments are increasingly in developing and/or sensitive regions where there are competing environmental, social, racial, political and economic pressures.
Resource extraction often competes with agriculture and other human activities for access to land and water resources. The mineral resources we seek are often located in developing countries where land is the basis of subsistence agricultural activities for already marginalised communities. They also are often in desert countries where water is critical to the survival of communities. These needs must be recognised and managed appropriately.
Not only must we be aware of the direct human rights impacts we may have as a result of our operations, we must also recognise our role in promoting human rights within our supply chain, with our business partners and more broadly within the regions where we operate.
Biodiversity
We must be mindful of the environmental values of potential resource developments. We must systematically identify, assess and manage the biodiversity values that may be potentially affected by our activities.
See the following for:
- details on Our Approach to this challenge
- an understanding of Our Drivers.
Our Approach
Management Systems
Our Sustainable Development Policy and HSEC Management Standards are structured around establishing systems and processes to manage risks and issues, including those relating to our relationships with our internal and external stakeholders, human rights and the environment, including biodiversity.
We require our sites to assess their exposure to potential human rights issues and develop management plans to address key exposures through our human rights self assessment process.
Our operations must develop and implement a community relations plan to ensure important stakeholder issues are identified and managed.
Sites are also required to have and maintain land management plans to identify, protect and enhance agreed beneficial land uses, including the consideration of biodiversity values.
Investment Tollgating
Internal tollgating and assessment tools, including formal risk and impact assessments, are utilised to identify environmental and social risks and issues associated with accessing resources and to ensure they are appropriately managed. The requirements of our tollgating processes increase as the project stage matures. For example, at the Concept stage of a project we require projects to have undertaken risk assessments to identify and outline management measures for HSEC, including human rights and biodiversity. At the Feasibility stage of a project we require detailed environmental and social impact assessments to be undertaken, incorporating the outcomes of environmental and social baseline studies and consequent mitigation measures.
For further details refer to Investment Processes.
Stakeholder Engagement
We seek proactive engagement by stakeholders and work with them to identify and manage their issues and concerns. (For details on our approach to engagement refer to Our Stakeholders.) Specifically, we have publicly committed to a number of policy positions in conjunction with our key stakeholders. These include:
- in conjunction with the International Council on Mining and Metals and the World Conservation Union, an undertaking not to explore or mine in World Heritage properties and a commitment to take all possible steps to ensure that operations are not incompatible with the outstanding universal values of World Heritage properties
- our policy on riverine tailings developed in conjunction with our Forum on Corporate Responsibility states we will not commit to a new mining project that disposes of waste rock or tailings into a river
- our policy on deep sea tailings placement, developed in conjunction with our Forum on Corporate Responsibility, states 'BHP Billiton has decided not to pursue Deep Sea Tailings Placement (DSTP) as a potential tailing disposal option for any of its current prospects. The Company also believes that given the very specific circumstances where DSTP could be considered appropriate, it is unlikely that the technology will be pursued in any of our future developments.'
- our Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity policies underpin our commitment to accelerating development and fostering entrepreneurship of historically disadvantaged groups in South Africa.
Overall, our operations are progressively and more comprehensively engaging key stakeholders (especially non-government groups and organisations) in addressing issues of mutual concern, and are doing it at an earlier stage of the project-planning process.
Our Drivers
Appropriately identifying and effectively managing issues about access to resources is essential if we are to:
- obtain and maintain a licence to operate
- improve access to new business opportunities
- keep ahead of regulations and reduce regulatory intervention
- enhance and protect our reputation
- differentiate ourselves from our competitors.
These are key to our sustainability as a business and our ability to deliver long-term share growth and shareholder value.
