Communities
Good community relations are as necessary for our business success as the effective management of our operations. This belief is at the heart of our overall approach to communities and is why we build good quality relationships with the people in the areas where we operate.
Wherever we operate, we seek to understand the social, environmental and economic implications of our activities so we can optimise benefits and reduce negative impacts, both for the local community and for the overall economy. We discuss mutual benefits and obligations with local governments and community representatives, and agree on the objectives that will secure long term results.
Our Communities work is guided by The way we work, Rio Tinto's global code of business conduct. Our Communities policy and standard provide the framework for the work, while guidance notes provide specific requirements in areas such as baseline communities assessment, consultation, social impact assessment, communities plans and compensation. We also refer to external policies such as the International Finance Corporation's standard and guidance on land acquisition and involuntary resettlement.
- Knowledge
- Engage
- Programmes
- Elements
- Results
We believe that our activities should benefit the whole community, not just the people that we employ.
We build enduring relationships with our neighbours, characterised by mutual respect, openness, trust, active partnership and long term commitment. We seek to involve all our employees in these relationships, not just those who work in the field of community relations.
Over the years, we have developed increasingly mature methods of engagement. We now have systems in place through which we actively involve communities in making decisions about the issues that affect them.
We build on our knowledge of our local communities through ongoing two way consultation based on assessment of who are affected by our business, what issues are involved, and how are decisions made. We aim for the procedures for undertaking our consultation to be mutually accepted and understood, transparent, culturally appropriate and publicly verifiable.
We communicate with communities throughout the life of our operations. By keeping communities fully informed of our activities and their consequences, they are well prepared for when things change. Likewise, we understand the changing needs of the community, and our effect on those.
We incorporate local convention and protocols into community decision making processes, and take into account the views of marginal, inadequately represented or vulnerable groups. Our Communities standard requires all of our sites have mechanisms that track and resolve legitimate complaints from community members.
Working with communities requires appropriate skills, experience and expertise. Our employees are qualified in areas such as economics, community development, cultural heritage, law, education and training, anthropology, sociology, conflict resolution and other related disciplines.
To meet the growing challenges of delivering benefits to local communities, we continually strive to improve and expand our employees' skills. We were a major supporter in establishing the Community relations in the minerals industry graduate diploma and certificate at the University of Queensland and the Strategic engagement diploma at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town. A significant number of our communities practitioners have completed or are studying for these qualifications.
The introduction of a mining, smelting or refining operation can be disruptive and concerning to local communities, particularly where resettlement, land rights or areas of spiritual value are concerned. We apply leading industry practice in dealing with such matters and try to minimise and mitigate negative impacts and gain broad-based community support for our activities.
However, people can validly have differing opinions about a development. For example, some sections of the community around the US based Eagle project in Michigan have requested broader access to Eagle Rock, notwithstanding the understandings we have reached with other sections of the community to address safety and other considerations.
Community action may also affect our ability to conduct our operations, such as our 2008 decision to temporarily suspend pilot project construction work at the La Granja copper development in Peru. Development of this project was subsequently scaled back as a result of the global financial crisis.
Even when the broader community is supportive, individuals or NGOs may continue to have concerns about or oppose our activities and they may commence legal action to challenge it. We seek to respond responsibly to such actions and to respect the views of people who disagree with us. We accept that we cannot meet everybody's concerns and expectations, but wherever we operate we seek to do so with broad-based community support.
Our operations are part of the social context in which they sit, and we may sometimes be subject to collateral effects or issues arising out of differences within a community or between a community and third parties. This can result in civil unrest and/or our employees and assets' being the target of anti-social and unlawful activities, as has been the case in the region of Indonesia where the non managed Grasberg copper-gold mine is situated. In such circumstances we do what we reasonably can to maintain the security of our assets and personnel in a manner that is proportionate and safe for our people and the local community. We follow the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, provide training to security personnel, and follow security rules of engagement which seek to limit the risk of fatal incidents arising from unrest, theft or trespass.
Our communities target requires all operations to have locally appropriate, publicly reported social performance indicators that demonstrate a positive contribution to the economic development of the communities and regions where we work, consistent with the Millennium Development Goals, by 2013. By 2010, 20 per cent of operations had these indicators in place. Our report on the Millennium Development Goals and the library of our local sustainable development reports can be found on our website.
