Finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs
Purpose & Values
The drive for innovation and continuous improvement is at the heart of our purpose
Business Strategy
Climate change is at the heart of our business strategy
Innovation
Finding better ways to do things is in our DNA
We supply the metals and minerals used to help the world grow and decarbonise
Iron Ore
Iron ore is the primary raw material used to make steel
7 things the world will need for a low-carbon future
Wind, sun and water – what else do you need to make renewable energy work?
Sustainability – the expectation, not the exception
Shaping our aluminium product offering to meet demand for greener metals
Bringing to market materials critical to urbanisation and the transition to a low-carbon economy
Look inside a mine of the future
Our most intelligent mine yet is pioneering new mining technologies
Rincon Project
A long-life, low-cost and low-carbon lithium source
Simandou Project
The world’s largest untapped high-grade iron ore deposit
Providing materials the world needs in a responsible way
Sustainability Reporting 2023
As temporary custodians of the land where we operate, we are entrusted with accessing the world’s essential materials and making them available for society’s use
Climate Change
We’re targeting net zero emissions by 2050
Tailings
We’ve launched a new interactive map of our tailings facilities
We aim to deliver superior returns to our shareholders while safeguarding the environment and meeting our obligations to wider society
Reports 2023
Download our 2023 Annual Report, Climate Change Report, Sustainability Fact Book and Taxes Paid Report
Get the latest news, stories and updates
Things you can't live without
Our podcast discussing what needs to happen to create a sustainable future for the everyday items we have come to rely on
A new way to decarbonise steel
Tackling a global challenge
Tackling it all
A short documentary series with the Queensland Reds is inspiring working women everywhere
Discover more about life at Rio Tinto
Graduates and students
If you want to drive real change, we have just the place to do it
Empowering families with flexibility
Supporting new parents of any gender with equal access to parental leave
Available jobs
Join our team
The Sustainability Fact Book outlines our key non-financial performance information for financial year 2023. It accompanies our 2023 sustainability disclosures and forms part of our reporting suite.
Reach zero fatalities and eliminate workplace injuries and catastrophic events.
Zero fatalities at managed operations (2022: 0 fatalities)
Have all of our businesses identify at least one critical health hazard material to their business and demonstrate a year-on-year reduction of exposure to that hazard.
6 assets achieved an exposure reduction to known health risks (airborne contaminants and noise) (2022: 9 assets)
Reduce the rate of new occupational illnesses each year.
27.15% increase in the rate of new occupational illnesses since 2022
Reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2025 and by 50% by 2030 (when compared to 2018 levels), and achieve net zero emissions from our operations by 20501.
5.5% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions below our 2018 baseline (2022: 5.2%)
Disclose permitted surface water allocation volumes, annual allocation usage and the estimated surface water allocation catchment runoff from average annual rainfall for all managed operations by 2023.
Achieve local water stewardship targets for selected sites by 2023.
5 of the 7 water stewardship targets attained by 2023 (2022: 5 of 7)
Achieve our global Communities and Social Performance (CSP) targets by 2026:
Improve diversity5 in our business by:
Improve our employee engagement and satisfaction.
1 point increase in our employee satisfaction score (eSAT8) since 2022 (from 73 to 74) (2022: 2 point increase)
1 While we expect to have made financial commitments to abatement projects totalling more than 15% of our emissions by 2025, achieved emissions reductions will lag this.
2 We take a “site-centric” view of the definition of local, which allows operations to establish their own definition, based on a set of common principles. These principles require that each operation, in defining “local” takes into consideration its geographic, social and economic area of impact as well as ownership. For example, suppliers located within the Pilbara region of Western Australia are defined as “local” for Rio Tinto Iron Ore’s Pilbara Operations. This approach is consistent with international best practice and aligns with the ICMM Social and Economic Reporting Framework guidance.
3 The cultural heritage co-management maturity framework sets out a maturity model consisting of five levels of maturity – from "learning the practice" to "leading practice". There are six categories against which a site will be evaluated to determine its level of maturity, covering various aspects of cultural heritage management.
4 Contractors refers to category 1, 2 and 3 contractors.
5 From 2021, the definition used to calculate diversity was changed to include people not available for work, and contractors (those engaged on temporary contracts to provide services under the direction of Rio Tinto leaders), excluding project contractors.
6 We define senior leadership as Managing Directors, General Managers, Group Advisers and Chief Advisors.
7 Identifying with a nationality is not mandatory. More than 48% of our graduates have not formally reported a nationality.
8 eSAT (Employee Satisfaction) is a measure of “how happy an employee is to work at Rio Tinto”. It is calculated by averaging the responses on a 1–7 scale and expressing this out of 100.
Our interactive charts provide current and historical data relating to our performance across topics including health and safety, climate change, environment, communities, human rights, responsible sourcing and transparency.
Find out more about our 2023 performance for:
We want to ensure all our stakeholders benefit from the success of our business. To do this, our priorities and performance must align with society’s expectations, which are constantly evolving.
Each year we complete a materiality assessment to understand what ESG issues and topics matter most to, and have the greatest impact on, our stakeholders and our business. Our ESG framework describes how we manage and report externally on these issues and how we contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Provide people and communities with social and economic opportunities so they can live and grow sustainably
Play our role to advance a fair and socially inclusive energy transition
Build a healthy, diverse and inclusive workforce, support local communities to achieve their goals and aspirations, and deliver positive social outcomes
Decarbonise our operations (Scope 1 and 2) and our value chains (Scope 3) and maximise the full value of our resources
Encourage circularity and provide critical minerals that the world needs to advance
Minimise environmental and heritage impacts and act as a responsible steward of water and biodiversity, to strengthen our resilience to a changing environment
We gather information from stakeholders via interviews, surveys and reviews of publicly available information to understand what they think is important now and what they think will be in five to ten years time. Some issues are identified as higher materiality than others.
Our internal and external stakeholders are broadly aligned on the four highly material ESG topics. Climate change is the most important topic and includes greenhouse gas emissions reduction, climate resilience and adaptation, and just transition. Respecting human rights; cultural and heritage site management; and health, safety and wellbeing are the other three highly material topics.
For our business, the safety and wellbeing of our people remains our highest priority. Biodiversity and ecosystems; business integrity and governance; ESG transparency and disclosure; inclusion, diversity and equity; local community relations, tailings and mineral waste management; and water management are also material topics as we strive to build a sustainable business.
Our internal and external stakeholders feel that climate change will only continue to increase in importance over the next decade. Biodiversity and ecosystems; the impact of technology; respecting human rights; risk management and cybersecurity; business integrity and governance; supply chain transparency; and end-to-end materials management will also increase in importance.
Water management will continue to be an extremely important topic in the future due to the reliance of local communities and our mining operations on this increasingly scarce resource. Managing all these ESG topics well will be integral to our social licence to operate and the success of our business.
Our materiality assessment records the threshold at which an issue or topic becomes important enough for us to report on externally. The importance of a topic is based on the significance of its impact on stakeholders. An ESG materiality assessment differs from financial materiality, which may use financial metrics or other quantitative analyses to determine what would be considered a significant or material impact.
As a member of ICMM, we commit to reporting on our ESG performance against the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and implementing the ICMM Performance Expectations (PEs). The ICMM Mining Principles framework focuses on the implementation of systems and practices related to a broad range of ESG areas. In 2022, all 29 Rio Tinto managed operating and refining assets completed a self-assessment against the ICMM PEs. A self-assessment was also completed for Rio Tinto Corporate. The criteria for prioritising 26 of our 29 operating assets for validation, within the 3 year cycle (2023–25), was also disclosed at this time.
In 2023, on-site third-party validations were completed for 12 of our priority operating and refining assets. The validation reports received to date demonstrate a high level of alignment between the self-assessment and validation outcomes, with identification of relevant areas for improvement. Information on the 2022 self-assessment or 2023 validation results are presented in the ICMM PE Summary tab in the 2023 Sustainability Fact Book. We have continued to improve our reporting to meet additional disclosure requirements, including the ICMM Social and Economic Reporting Framework (SERF). In 2023, we have disclosed our performance against most of the SERF indicators.
The majority of our ESG reporting is incorporated into this Annual Report and supplemented by our 2023 Sustainability Fact Book containing current and historical data on topics including health, safety, environment, climate, communities, human rights, responsible sourcing, ICMM Pes and transparency.
E: sustainability@riotinto.com
How we process personal data provided or obtained through this website.
With the exception of the use of cookies, Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of our Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
With the exception of the use of cookies (explained below), Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
Part 1 of this Privacy Policy contains the Rio Tinto Data Privacy Standard, which provides an overview of Rio Tinto’s approach to personal data processing. There is additional information in the appendices to the Data Privacy Standard, including information about disclosures, trans-border data transfers, the exercise of data subject rights and how to make complaints or obtain further information relating to Rio Tinto’s processing of your personal data.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us at digital.comms@riotinto.com).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of this Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
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