Our performance

Every year, we report on our sustainable development performance through a number of channels. In addition to the summary of our performance and sustainable development highlights in our Annual report, we publish sustainable development programme information, progress against our goals and targets and performance data on these web pages and we also report under other voluntary commitments.

These voluntary commitments include:

• Global Reporting Initiative
• International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM) Sustainable Development Framework
• United Nations Global Compact
• Carbon Disclosure Project
• Corporate Responsibility Index 
• Dow Jones Sustainability Index 
• FTSE4Good

Reporting at a Group level

Rio Tinto's sustainable development data are reported for calendar years and, unless otherwise stated, represent 100 per cent of the parameter at each managed operation, even though Rio Tinto may have only partial ownership.

Rio Tinto reports in line with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 guidelines. Accordingly, we use a materiality assessment to help us focus this report on those issues that are most important to our internal and external stakeholders. Omission from the material issues covered in our report does not mean that the issue is not managed by the company.

We implemented ICMM's ten sustainable development principles and disclosed the alignment of our policies, strategies, standards and practices with ICMM's principles and position statements.

We collect health, safety, environment and community data using industry standard techniques consistent with Rio Tinto standards. We apply global definitions and guidance to ensure consistency and comparability between operations. We store data, which is queried and aggregated to the Group level, in a central database to avoid manual intervention

The factors and formulae that are used in our calculations are sourced from relevant industry protocols (for example, the Global Reporting Initiative, the International Organization for Standardization, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) where available.

Data reported in previous years may be modified if business or Group verification processes detect material errors, or if changes are required to historic data to ensure comparability with current year data (eg updating emission factor assumptions).

Wherever possible, data for operations acquired prior to 1 October during the reporting period are collected for inclusion in the Rio Tinto datasets. Divested operations are included in our data collection processes up until the transfer of management control.

Former Alcan operations (with the exception of the Engineered Products and Packaging divisions, which are in the process of being divested) have adopted Rio Tinto definitions and are included in Rio Tinto datasets from 1 January 2008.

We used the independent professional services firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to provide the board of directors of Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Limited assurance on selected sustainable development subject matter, and a statement from PricewaterhouseCoopers is available on the Assurance page.

Each of our business units are required to produce their own local sustainable development reports.