Stewardship
Stewardship is a principle that calls on all those involved in the product life cycle to share responsibility for minimising the environmental and human impacts that result from the production, use and disposal of the product.
BHP Billiton has embraced the concept of stewardship as an integral part of its commitment to sustainable development. Our approach is directed by HSEC Management Standard 12, the intent of which is that HSEC impacts associated with resources, materials, processes and products are minimised and managed.
Key Stakeholders
In the life cycle of the commodities produced by BHP Billiton, key stakeholders include:
- extractors (our principal area of responsibility for our commodities)
- processors
- manufacturers
- users and end-users (recyclers/reusers/disposers)
- suppliers
- transport chains that link the different sectors.
Types of Stewardship
In the life cycle of our products there are four types of stewardship:
- Material stewardship – refers to the different materials utilised to produce the product as the product moves through its life cycle. These include consumables ranging from tyres and fuel to water and energy. Material stewardship is about understanding and managing these materials (or inputs) in order to minimise harm to people and/or the environment.
- Product stewardship – understanding and managing our specific products or commodities in order to minimise harm to people and/or the environment, as a result of exposure to the particular product/commodity. This is a shared responsibility with others in the life cycle of our product/commodity.
- Resource stewardship – ensuring we maximise the value of the resource (e.g. an ore deposit) for both current and future generations.
- Process stewardship – refers to the different processes applied to the product (e.g. extraction, smelting) as the product moves through its life cycle and that have the potential to generate outputs (other than just the product). These could include greenhouse gases, waste and other emissions. Process stewardship is about understanding and managing these processes (or outputs) in order to minimise harm to people and/or the environment.
The life cycle of our products varies depending on the nature of the product. For the majority of our products the life cycle comprises:
- resource extractors – a BHP Billiton mine or oil field
- processors – note that for some products, such as nickel and aluminium, we are both the extractor and processor
- manufacturers
- users.
At the end of the life cycle the product is reused, recycled or disposed of. Read more: Overview of current recycling rates by commodity.
The four types of stewardship are illustrated below, using a generic product life cycle.
While material, process and product stewardship apply across the life cycle, resource stewardship is most prominent in the early stages of the life cycle. Common to all parts of the life cycle are the transport and marketing functions, as both play a critical role in stewardship.
The Different Stewardship Types in the Product Life cycle
The same model can be expanded upon for each individual stage within the overall product life cycle.
The following diagram illustrates the product life cycle for a company in the extractive stage of the overall life cycle. The diagram highlights how the same principles of stewardship apply within the extractive stage, as activities move from exploration through to mining, then ore processing and, ultimately, transportation from the mine gate to the processing stage.
The Different Stewardship Types in the Extractive Stage of a Life cycle
Read more:
Working with others
Most mining and mineral processing companies do not traditionally integrate product manufacture into their businesses, focusing on extraction and processing only. With the majority of the life cycle of our products occurring after the point of processing, we recognise there is strong business merit for implementing stewardship principles in collaboration with our key stakeholders, through improving product differentiation in the marketplace, maintaining market access and maximising opportunities for recycling and reuse.
Marketing
Our stewardship approach, and increasingly our approach to product marketing, is designed to improve health and safety and to reduce environmental impact across the life cycle of our products.
During the year, four stewardship workshops were conducted for our specialist marketing personnel across the globe. With representatives from each of our Customer Sector Groups, the workshops were designed to develop a clearer understanding of the role of marketing in the implementation of stewardship principles ‘beyond the mine gate’, and how we can work collaboratively with our customers to reduce the negative impacts of minerals productions on the community and the environment. As a result, a network of product stewardship marketing contacts for each of our commodities has been established.
We generally sell to industrial customers who are knowledgeable in the handling and care of our products. We enhance this safety focus by providing material safety data sheets (MSDSs) with all of our products.
Our customer-centric marketing model means we generally engage directly with customers rather than through brokers and agents. For our key relationships, our ability to provide face-to-face contact between the marketer and the customer aims to improve the result for both parties.
All public comment is vetted, and approval processes are in place to ensure our adherence to laws, standards and voluntary codes related to marketing communications, such as advertising, promotion and sponsorship. With the exception of diamonds, our advertising is limited to industrial users.
Intellectual property, corporate and customer data is protected by our information technology infrastructure. Controls are in place to limit access to customer data and prevent unauthorised alterations.
In 2006 there were no substantiated complaints regarding breaches of consumer privacy or instances of non-compliance with marketing communications, information/labelling or product health and safety regulations.
One example of appropriate stewardship beyond the mine gate is RightShip Pty Ltd, a ship vetting specialist promoting safety and efficiency in the global maritime industry. RightShip is a 50:50 joint venture between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto that came into being in 2001 after both companies identified the need to effectively manage their own risks around shipping and see sub-standard ships and operators out of the industry.
Using an online system, RightShip vets every ship that the two companies use to move their cargoes. In 2005 this represented 9162 ships online, some 827 million dead weight tonnage(dwt) of cargo, the inspection and assessment of 431 ships and the exclusion of 165 high-risk ships from clients’ supply chains.
