Glossary

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on earth - the different animals, plants and micro-organisms, their genes and the ecosystems of which they are a part.

Ecosystems services are the benefits we obtain from ecosystems. The UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment grouped these into four categories: provisioning (production of food and water), regulating (control of climate and disease), supporting (nutrient cycles and crop pollination), and cultural (spiritual and recreational benefits).

Applies to an environmental incident in which material and/or energy is ejected in an uncontrolled manner to the atmosphere, or emissions that are not compliant with agreed licences, including: dust, noise, vibration and blasting incidents.

Energy use includes energy associated with the combustion of fuels and use of electricity and other energy sources such as steam and hydro power. Energy use for anodes and reductants is evaluated from a carbon balance used to evaluate the resultant carbon dioxide emissions.

Under Rio Tinto's reporting guidelines, any individual operation that is not expected to consume 40,000 gigajoules (GJ) of energy in any year over the next three years can be excluded from our data collection processes. It is recognised that reporting trivial quantities of fuels and emissions may result in a significant workload. Thus operations may omit or estimate individual emission or energy sources from their inventories subject to the following rules:

• For non-Australian operations: Individual sources that can be excluded should be less than 10,000GJ. The total of these excluded sources should be less than five per cent of the operation's complete inventory
• For Australian operations: The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Act 2007 requires all sources to be included. However, some incidental sources can be estimated. An incidental source is any source that is less than 0.5 per cent of the facility's energy use or energy produced and is less than 15,000GJ. The total of these incidental sources must be less than two per cent of the facility's inventory and less than 60,000GJ

The surroundings in which an organisation operates, including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans, and their interrelation.

Potable water or good quality raw water with total dissolved solids less than 1,500 milligrams per litre, pH 5-9, and individual dissolved constituents (metals, anions, etc) at concentrations suitable for agricultural, livestock or irrigation use (based on local, regional or national guidelines).

The amount of freshwater used per tonne of product.

Rio Tinto's freshwater use efficiency target is evaluated as the per cent difference between freshwater use efficiency in the target year and the equivalent freshwater use efficiency in the baseline year. We use 2008 as the baseline year for our target. 

Any business or operation, such as Rio Tinto Exploration, that does not produce a saleable product is excluded from the target assessment. Developing operations are included in the assessment once production exceeds 60 per cent of nameplate production within a reporting year.

Freshwater withdrawn includes:

• Imported surface water (water provided by a third party for Rio Tinto use)
• On-site impounded water used in process applications
• Imported groundwater
• On-site groundwater
• Freshwater withdrawn for use as cooling water, that is chemically, physically or biologically modified at the final point of discharge and / or is returned to the environment with a temperature change of greater than five degrees.

Freshwater withdrawn does not include:

• Poor quality water
• Overflow of water in heavy rain conditions from impoundments that has not had the quality significantly altered by inputs and seepage
• Water diverted to avoid contamination but not subsequently withdrawn or intercepted for use
• Water withdrawn and directly supplied to others, eg (i) for use in agricultural or pastoral properties; (ii) for export to third parties or (iii) for town use
• Freshwater withdrawn and used for hydropower generation.
  

Freshwater withdrawn and not used includes:

• On-site groundwater which is extracted for ground control (dewatering) and discharged without use in the process.
  

Freshwater withdrawn and used includes:

• Imported surface water (water provided by a third party for Rio Tinto use)
• On-site impounded water used in process applications
• Imported groundwater
• On-site groundwater, except that which is extracted for ground control (dewatering) and discharged without use
• Freshwater withdrawn for use as cooling water, that is chemically, physically or biologically modified at the final point of discharge and / or is returned to the environment with a temperature change of greater than five degrees and / or is returned to the environment with a temperature change of greater than five degrees.
  

Rio Tinto reports emissions of all six groups of greenhouse gases included in the Kyoto Protocol: carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorinated carbon compounds and sulphur hexafluoride.

Under Rio Tinto's reporting guidelines, individual operations that are not expected to exceed 3,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO₂-e) emissions in any year over the next three years can be excluded from our data collection processes. It is recognised that reporting trivial quantities of fuels and emissions may result in a significant workload. Thus operations may omit or estimate individual emission sources from their inventories subject to the following rules:

• For non-Australian operations: Individual sources that can be excluded should be less than 1,000t CO₂-e. The total of these excluded sources should be less than five per cent of the operation's complete inventory.
• For Australian operations: the National Greenhouse Energy Reporting (NGER) Act 2007 requires all sources to be included. However, some incidental sources can be estimated. An incidental source is any source that is less than 0.5 per cent of the facility's emissions (scope 1 plus scope 2 emissions) and is less than 3,000t CO₂-e. The total of these incidental sources must be less than two per cent of the facility's inventory and less than 12,000t CO₂-e.
  

Mineral wastes include waste rock, tailings and slag:

• Waste rock is composed of soils or bedrock that must be removed to uncover or access ore during mining.
• Tailings consist of ground up rock mixed with process water that remains after the minerals of economic interest have been removed from the ore.
• Slag is generated by smelting operations and is the glassy material that remains after metals, such as copper, have been removed from the ore concentrate.

Mineral wastes are typically produced in very large volumes. Their handling and storage can directly impact the land. Mineral waste is usually permanently stored on site where it is used as in pit backfill or held in engineered repositories. Most mineral wastes are inert, but some are chemically reactive and must be appropriately handled to protect people, wildlife and water quality.

Emission release points that move, such as haul trucks. Compare with "stationary sources".

Non mineral waste is primarily composed of the auxiliary materials that support our mining and mineral processing operations. This includes familiar materials such as used oil, tyres, old batteries and office waste, as well as more specialised waste streams such as spent pot liners from aluminium smelters. Non mineral waste is produced in much smaller volumes than mineral waste, and is most commonly managed through recycling, off site treatment and disposal, or placement in on site engineered landfills.

Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions, ie direct greenhouse gas emissions that are owned or controlled by the company and include fuel use, on-site electricity generation, anode and reductant use, process emissions, land management and livestock.

Our operational land holdings fall into two categories:

• All land disturbed for mining, processing and related activities, including rehabilitated land. This is known as our operational footprint.
• Land outside our operational footprint area, which may be used in the future for mining, processing and related activities as well as other land uses. This is known as our land holding balance.
  

The activities associated with the process of mining or refining. This includes mining, milling, slurrying, washing ore, dust suppression, wastewater / sewerage treatment, power generation, bathhouse, camp, canteen, offices, irrigating rehabilitated land and wash down.

The World Resource Institute / World Business Council for Sustainable Development Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Carbon Reporting and Accounting Standard, March 2004 defines three scopes of greenhouse gas emissions for reporting purposes. 

Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions that are owned or controlled by the company and include fuel use, on-site electricity generation, anode and reductant use, process emissions, land management and livestock (on-site emissions).

Scope 2 emissions are greenhouse gas emissions from the imports of electricity, heat or steam from third parties (indirect emissions).

Scope 3 emissions are other indirect greenhouse gas emissions.

Emission release points that do not move, such as power stations, smelters, refineries and concentrators. Compare with "mobile sources".

Scope 1 emissions + Scope 2 emissions - emissions associated with electricity and steam exported to others - net carbon credits voluntarily purchased from, or sold to, recognised sources.

An indexed measure of the change in emissions per unit of product compared to a baseline intensity, evaluated for each of our commodities.

Commodities are products sold to the market from operations of comparable scope. Examples include bauxite mined, smelter grade alumina refined from bauxite, primary aluminium smelted from alumina, copper concentrate from mine to concentrator, and copper cathode from mine to refinery.

Rio Tinto's total greenhouse gas emissions intensity target is evaluated as the per cent difference between actual total greenhouse gas emissions in the target year and the equivalent emissions expected from the target year production at the baseline year emissions intensity for each commodity.

Any business or operation, such as Rio Tinto Exploration, that does not produce a saleable product is excluded from the target assessment.

Developing operations are included in the assessment once production exceeds 60 per cent of nameplate production within a reporting year. We index our performance relative to 2008 as a baseline year.