Engaging with stakeholders

Rio Tinto recognises that we do not work in isolation. As well as engaging with the local communities at our operations, we also work on a local, national and international level with many partner organisations, industry bodies and governments.

Rio Tinto engages with governments and stakeholders around the world to advocate for domestic and international government policies that:

• Encourage leadership from developed economies while enabling all countries to contribute to effective management of GHG emissions.
• Set credible limits for future emissions that recognise the scale and long term nature of the climate change challenge.
• Support technology development and deployment to change the way we use energy.
• Use broad-based market mechanisms that increase flexibility and reduce the cost of abating GHG emissions.  As a tool to achieve a specific emissions reduction target, emissions trading is preferred over carbon taxes or inflexible on-site reduction requirements.

Rio Tinto recognises that domestic and international policies and measures to address climate change present business risks and opportunities that will affect shareholder value. We will continue to address climate change challenges by minimising the business risks, capturing the opportunities, and taking actions that fully consider social, environmental, and economic values.

Rio Tinto participates in a number of collaborative efforts to promote public policy frameworks to address climate change.  These include:

• The United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)  - a group of businesses and leading environmental organizations that have come together to call on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. USCAP has issued a landmark set of principles and recommendations to underscore the urgent need for a policy framework on climate change.  This unique alliance, formed in January 2007, believes that swift legislative action on the USCAP solutions-based proposal, entitled 'A Call for Action', would encourage innovation, enhance America's energy security, foster economic growth, improve our balance of trade and provide critically needed US leadership on this vital global challenge.
• The Australian Business & Climate Group - a group of eight companies who joined together to explore the role of technology in mitigating climate change and the challenges of low emission technology development, commercialisation and deployment.   The group published a report in August 2007 which was distributed to policy makers and influencers.