Our Approach
The Company's commitment to sustainable development has evolved over our long history of operational experience and through lessons learned along the way. Working through complex issues associated with our operations has highlighted environmental and social performance as a critical success factor for the Company. We are well aware of the costs of getting it wrong but, more importantly, we recognise the value that can be created by getting it right. Consequently, we adopt a holistic approach to business strategy, seeking to realise value for all our stakeholders through sustainable business philosophy.
This section details our vision for sustainable development and the strategic approach we have adopted to contribute to sustainability.
Governance outlines the systems and processes we have to guide our businesses in their journey to sustainable development.
The business basis of our approach to sustainable development is outlined in The Business Case.
See the following for further details on our approach to sustainable development:
- Our Vision of what sustainable development means to BHP Billiton
- Our Strategy for working towards sustainable development
- Measuring Progress of our journey towards sustainable development.
Our Vision
At BHP Billiton, our vision for sustainable development is to be the company of choice — creating sustainable value for shareholders, employees, contractors, suppliers, customers, business partners and host communities. Central to our vision is our aspirational goal of Zero Harm to people and the environment.
In simple terms,
Zero Harm means:
- we aspire to create a workplace that is injury, illness and incident free. We seek to minimise and where possible eliminate our environmental impacts over time.
Company of choice means:
- being selected by shareholders as a valued investment, based on strong financial performance and sound governance processes .
- being preferred by employees for providing a safe, healthy and equitable workplace and caring about the communities in which we live.
- being preferred by host communities for our contribution to sustainable community wellbeing.
- being preferred by our business partners — customers, suppliers, contractors, governments and joint venture partners — as a reliable partner in delivering sustainable value.
This emphasis on sustainable value means we have the willingness to invest for the future while ensuring we deliver value in the shorter term.
Our Strategy
Our sustainable development strategy comprises two dimensions – business dimensions and sustainability dimensions – that together contribute to a single bottom-line performance. Business dimensions represent traditional contributors to a financially successful and competitive business, as without a profitable business we are unable to contribute to the broader goals of sustainability. Our bottom-line performance is however dependent upon ensuring access to resources and securing and maintaining a licence to operate and grow. This highlights the criticality of the value protection and value add that can be achieved through enhanced performance in non-financial dimensions – or sustainability dimensions.
BHP Billiton business dimensions
- business excellence and customer focus
- portfolio diversity
- deep inventory of growth projects across all CSGs, including greenfield and brownfield projects as well as appropriate merger and acquisition activities
- quality, long-life assets.
BHP Billiton sustainability dimensions
- aspiring towards Zero Harm to people, host communities and the environment
- ensuring effective governance and risk management processes are in place
- recognising the need to be socially responsible and contribute to sustainable community development
- ensuring the broader economic contributions of our operations are effectively injected into the regions where we operate.
Maximising bottom line performance is therefore about recognising the value-protection and value add to be achieved through performance in non-financial dimensions. Integral to which is excellence in HSEC performance.
A useful metaphor we apply to our sustainable development strategy is illustrated below. Together, our strategic dimensions combine to form a structure similar to that of a natural diamond. An inherently stable structure, with the strength in each dimension contributing equally to an even stronger, stable and more valuable whole, and a robust bottom line, the diamond is symbolic of our approach to sustainable development.
Measuring Progress
Our Sustainable Development Road Map is a strategy map that provides a new, contextual framework for how we measure our progress on our journey towards sustainable development.
We will be encouraging our managers to place their decisions in the context of this Road Map and question how they can better improve the sustainability performance of their operations.
The Road Map seeks to illustrate that there are three contexts to consider when making decisions that influence our ability to contribute to sustainble development. At the operational level, we will be encouraging our managers to increasingly seek out leading practices across the HSEC dimensions. On a strategic level, we will be encouraging management teams to identify opportunities that drive sustainable value creation. At the commodity level, we will be encouraging our businesses to demonstrate stewardship by building partnerships across the lifecycles of our products to deliver broader business and societal returns.
We recognise that there may not always be a need for operations to excel in all aspects of sustainability, and therefore encourage an approach whereby operations strive for excellence in areas where they perceive the greatest relevance to their stakeholders and business. While each stage in maturity is distinct, it is recognised that the requirements of the previous stage must be maintained and built upon in order to progress in maturity.
Mature sustainable development is about strong leadership and foresight. We see this as leading to the strategic alignment of opportunities – for example, converting hazardous manganese sludges and dusts into pellets that can be made into manganese alloys.
| Maturity phases | Indicative milestones | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. |
Compliance What are our mandatory obligations? Are we meeting them? |
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| 2. |
Risk Management Where are our exposures? How can they be managed and minimised? We establish systems, measure, benchmark and review our performance and develop strategies to continually improve performance. |
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| 3. |
Responsibility Is sustainability part of the way our business lives and breathes? We develop a culture where strategic thinking and continuous improvement is internalised so that quality, efficiency and innovation become business as usual. |
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| 4. |
Innovation What are the strategic business opportunities arising from our achievements? We benefit from actions taken to reduce our environmental and social impact by leveraging strategic, innovation or market advantages. |
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| 5. |
Strategic alignment How can we integrate aspects of sustainability into our business? We are positioned to adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace and are ready to exploit new opportunities or to set future market realities. |
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