Rio Tinto Energy: Sustainable development programme
Issues associated with climate change, deregulation of the utility markets, tightening health and environmental standards, disposal of nuclear waste, and growth in world energy demand (estimated at 60 per cent by 2020), particularly in developing countries, are among the challenges facing society in meeting current and future energy needs. It is likely that more challenges will present themselves in the coming years.
Rio Tinto Energy is using the concept of sustainable development as a framework to help build the capacity to evolve and adapt to these changes. Its sustainable development approach is demonstrated in the diagram below.
The sustainable development approach: View image
Principles
The principles for our contribution to the transition to sustainable development are:
Expectations of stakeholders must be understood, the conflicting expectations balanced and behaviours changed appropriately.
Negotiation entered into with customers and suppliers to maximise the benefits of the use of our products and minimise adverse effects.
Engagement with people inside and outside our business.
Responsibility for management of our operations to maximise resource use and minimise adverse social or environmental effects.
Governance frameworks that are open and accountable.
Year on year improvement should be achieved.
The challenges presented by sustainable development do not always fit the traditional way we have worked or thought. Sustainable development is not a single project such as building a process plant, or implementing an environmental or safety standard. Implementation of sustainable development is more closely aligned to a journey in which we improve the way we make decisions in response to business needs, feedback from the others, and the needs of future generations.
One positive indication of the success of the changes is that not all sustainable development activities are necessarily branded 'sustainable development'. Nevertheless, all the activities are consistent with a progressive change in the way the Energy group works to become an organisation with the people, skills, customer and community relationships that will promote sustainable development principles and enable it to deliver superior value to our shareholders in the long term.
Examples of the types of projects that are being undertaken within the RTE sustainable development framework:
Product stewardship
Research to improve the environmental performance of coal
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