Assurance statement
Environmental Resources Management Limited was appointed by Rio Tinto on behalf of the Board Committee on Social and Environmental Accountability (CSEA) to undertake an external assurance assessment of its 2005 Sustainable development review.
This is the fourth year of our involvement as an external assuror with Rio Tinto. At the request of the CSEA, this year we based our exercise on Rio Tinto’s primary internal assurance mechanisms for implementation of the group’s non financial policies, incorporated in The way we work.
During the period July 2005 to February 2006 we conducted the following tasks:
- Desk based screening of selected performance data for all 88 of Rio Tinto’s managed operations (organised into 38 organisational units) to identify a sample of locations to visit and selected management processes (ie ‘control’ mechanisms) to test;
- Assessments at 12 operations and nine business units to test these controls;
- Review of data collection and internal verification processes for health, safety and environment data at corporate offices in the United Kingdom and Australia; and
- Review of the content of the 2005 Sustainable development review, to assess its completeness, relevance, responsiveness and accuracy.
Overall assessment
Based on the assurance activities undertaken, in our opinion, this Review presents fairly, and in all material respects, the major social and environmental issues facing Rio Tinto. ERM, therefore, considers that the 2005 Sustainable development review is a complete, relevant, responsive and accurate representation of Rio Tinto’s programmes and performance. From our review we have made the following observations, findings and recommendations.
Environment Resource Management (ERM)
January 2006
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