Rio Tinto has produced a series of requirements and guidance mechanisms for its operations, such as the occupational health, safety and environment policies, a number of guidelines, and more recently the safety standards and occupational health standards. To complete this sequence, and draw existing requirements and guidelines for environmental management together, we have now developed a set of environment standards.

The standards have been developed to cover the range of development phases of our activities (eg design, construction, operation, rehabilitation and closure); the various types of activities we are involved in (eg exploration, mining, processing, smelting, refining and transport); as well as the life cycle of our activities (eg natural resources and other inputs, processes, wastes and various outputs).

Standards have been developed to cover both management and performance. The management standard covers areas such as the environmental management system, environmental aspect and impact assessment, reporting and data quality. All Rio Tinto operations are required to implement the ISO 14001 environmental management system or equivalent, and be certified, by mid 2005.

The performance standards cover areas such as handling of mineral and non mineral waste, hazardous material and contamination control, air quality, noise and vibration control, land use stewardship, control of acid rock drainage, greenhouse gas emissions, water use and general quality control.

Development of the standards has drawn on the knowledge and experience that exists in both our operations and corporate functions. In addition, information flowing from external activities such as our biodiversity partnerships and the challenges that are flowing from the final Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (MMSD) report, have been built into the standards. Prior to their finalisation, the draft standards were discussed at a series of internal workshops in 2003. Full implementation of the standards is planned for 2004, with auditing against them commencing in mid 2005.

The standards will become an integral part of Rio Tinto's internal assurance process and will assist improvements in environmental performance.

View our standards...