Public reporting

Those who monitor Rio Tinto have different interests and needs. Data has to provide answers to the questions different interest groups are asking, and also be useful to those seeking to improve performance.

Currently there is no agreed set of measures of social and environment performance that will deliver satisfactory transparency and comparability to all groups. Even if there were agreement, the next challenge would be to agree on definitions, verification and interpretation. These difficulties are the subject of study and consultation by a number of groups including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Business in the Environment (BiE), and many academic research institutions. Rio Tinto supports the development of a global standard in preference to individual country standards for reporting.

Rio Tinto will continue to engage in the debate on standardisation of reporting on social and environment programmes and performance. Internally, we will continue to develop measures aimed at improving our performance across the Group and we will undertake programmes to improve data quality and integrity. This web-based reporting structure started in 2002 builds on the public reports commencing in 1996 and is periodically updated on issues and programmes supported by annually collated performance data.

Content this section

• The Verification process
  Our approach is to expand our external assurance programme through improvements to verification programmes, and dialogue with stakeholders.
  
  
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
  An international, multi-stakeholder effort to create a common framework for voluntary reporting of the economic, environmental and social impact of organisation-level activity.
  
  
• Local Social and Environment Reports
  All businesses including the exploration division produced social and environment reports for their businesses for the year 2001.

Further links

• Academic research into indicators
  Rio Tinto has signed a memorandum of understanding with Warwick University Corporate Citizenship Unit , for a five year programme into the development of sustainability indicators.

Indicators that relate to Group performance:

• World, Neighbours and Workplace