I am pleased to introduce the eighth annual review of Rio Tinto's social and environmental performance. I invite you to explore this full Social and environment review where you can also access the local social and environment reports for each of our businesses.

As a signatory of the UN Global Compact, we report on the ways in which we conduct our activities and carry out programmes to support the nine principles, including protection of human rights, freedom of association in the workplace and environmental responsibility.

As chairman of both Rio Tinto and the Committee on social and environmental accountability I take a close personal interest in both our past performance and the policies and programmes in place to drive future performance. We acknowledge the points made in the Environmental Resources Management (ERM) assurance statement and plan to use this as a basis for further performance improvement in 2004.