Community investment
Wherever we operate we seek to understand the social, environmental and economic implications of our activities, both for the local community and for the overall economy.
By understanding our economic interaction with the communities where we operate, we can optimise benefits for communities and our operations alike. This economic interaction includes relationships with local suppliers, training and local employment, small enterprise support, the optimal distribution of taxes and royalties and multi-lateral socioeconomic programmes. The infrastructure developed for a particular mine or processing plant can also greatly benefit local communities and other regional players such as local businesses and governments.
We work closely with local representatives to inform ourselves of community concerns and priorities, and our programmes are the result of rigorous consultation and research. Mutual benefits and obligations are discussed with local governments and community representatives. Objectives are agreed to secure long term results.
To enable us to target the delivery of socio-economic programmes reflecting the priorities of local communities, we use community baseline assessments, including identification of potential positive and negative impacts of our presence. We use this information along with two way community and local stakeholder consultation to develop our multi year communities plans, including measures of success that are internally and externally monitored.
To contribute to sustainable livelihoods after mine closure, each Rio Tinto business now has a closure planning process that is updated annually. The plans apply throughout the lifecycle of the Group's activities, from exploration to mine closure and beyond. All these plans are developed with community input, particularly regarding post mining land use.
Our results
In 2007, Rio Tinto businesses supported more than 2,900 socio-economic programmes covering a wide range of activities extending through health, education, business development, housing, environmental protection and agricultural development.
We spent an estimated US$107 million on community assistance programmes associated with our operations and payments into benefits receiving trusts set up in directly negotiated community impact benefit agreements. This is exclusive of economic multiplier contributions, such as salaries and wages, local procurement, infrastructure, housing and utilities support.
Our work in 2007 included:
- Providing financial and technical support to community HIV programmes in Madagascar with public and NGO partners and establishing a business advisory centre to promote local entrepreneurs and decentralise our supply chain.
- Renewing our commitment to an enhanced community assistance programme at Murowa diamonds, Zimbabwe, to include school construction and rehabilitation, electrification of social infrastructure, small irrigation projects, and food security programmes.
- Progressing 23 Guinean staff from entry level positions to positions of higher responsibility at the Simandou project and donating 130 computers collected from various Rio Tinto operations to local civil society organisations in Guinea.
- Sponsoring nine Mongolian students to study in Mongolia and other parts of the world in mining related fields including: finance, law, geology and accounting.
The acquisition of Alcan brought together two very similar approaches to facilitating sustainable communities, with complementary community support programmes which are not yet fully captured in this report.
In 2006, we spent an estimated US$ 96 million (compared to US$ 93 million in 2005) on more than 855 community programmes relating to our business.