Business Structure

The Pilbara is extremely well-positioned to contribute to our emissions reduction targets through renewable power with access to abundant wind and solar resources. 

As part of our decarbonisation efforts, we expect to invest around $3 billion to install a mammoth one-gigawatt renewable energy system in the Pilbara. As part of this investment, we will fund the construction of two 100MW solar power facilities as well as 200MWh of on-grid battery storage in the Pilbara by 2026. This is in addition to the 34MW of solar power installed at the recently commissioned Gudai-Darri iron ore mine. We are also collaborating with Scania to develop more agile autonomous haul trucks, which have the potential for lower emissions and increased productivity. And last year, we agreed to purchase at least four battery-powered locomotives to add to our rail network to remove diesel from our locomotive fleet. And the development of the new low-carbon iron-making process, known as BioIron^TM, will help reduce emissions in steelmaking.

We continued to strengthen our partnerships with local communities and Traditional Owners. By working together, and truly listening to understand, we were able to achieve a great deal with the Traditional Owners on whose land we operate.

We know we still have a long way to go, but our focus on changing the way we work with Traditional Owners to better protect heritage has been a real highlight. I feel privileged that Pilbara Traditional Owners have invested so much of their time with me and others in our business, as we continue to rebuild trust.

We entered into a remedy agreement with the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation over the tragic destruction of the ancient rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in 2020. We also agreed with the Yinhawangka people on a plan to ensure the protection of significant social and cultural heritage values for the Western Range iron ore mine on their Country. This is the first mine we have co-designed with Traditional Owners.

Our agreement with the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation was also updated, which aims to deliver improved outcomes for the Yindjibarndi people for generations to come.

My hope is that we look back on these agreements as milestones on our pathway to reconciliation and better outcomes for Pilbara Traditional Owners. 

We made genuine progress in securing the future of the Pilbara by delivering the mines of the future. This included opening our newest mine, Gudai-Darri, and reaching an agreement with China Baowu Steel Group to develop Western Range.

We modernised our Rhodes Ridge joint venture with Wright Prospecting, an agreement that paves the way for development of one of the world’s biggest high-grade deposits of iron ore.

To transform our safe operating performance, we rolled out seven deployments of the Safe Production System (SPS) across the Pilbara. The SPS is driving productivity and employee satisfaction at our sites by empowering our people to find better ways of working. There will be further deployments at our mines, rail, ports and operations centre in 2023.

February marked 12 months since we released the Everyday Respect Report. This was a watershed moment for us as a business and has since had flow-on effects in our industry and across other sectors.

It is clear there is work to be done to evolve our culture. But the only way to see real change is by first looking at ourselves, challenging our own biases, and then being prepared to stand up and lead – challenging others to change.

One of the biggest impacts we have seen so far has been the openness in the discussions we are now having about our culture. In 2022 we stopped our operations for 45 minutes for a second year in a row, to open up space for teams to talk about respect. I have been moved by stories from team members who have had really hard conversations, challenging themselves and each other.

In 2022, we launched a variety of new training courses for leaders and frontline workers – upskilling our entire workforce on the behaviours we want to see across the organisation. 

To reinforce this culture transformation and openness, last year we introduced Purple Banners on sites. They are used to highlight disrespectful, discriminatory and hurtful behaviours occurring in our business – in the same way we highlight safety concerns. 

Over the past two years we have implemented a range of measures to make our workplaces safer and more inclusive, such as upgrading rooms and enhancing security in our fly-in, fly-out accommodation facilities. 

In 2022, we launched the Transferable Pathways programme where we recruited 32 women leaders from other industries to take on leadership operational roles. I was blown away by the response to the programme. We are already seeing the difference these people are making to our business, bringing different ways of thinking and challenging us to change. We have also updated our global minimum standard for paid parental leave to suit different family needs, now offering 18 weeks of gender-neutral and equal paid parental leave. And to close the gender superannuation gap, we continue to contribute to an employee's superannuation while an employee is on unpaid or half-pay parental leave.

2022 has been a year of achievement. In January, we reached an agreement with the Government of Mongolia, we completed the acquisition of Turquoise Hill Resources in December, and by the end of 2022, a total of 19 drawbells had been fired at Oyu Tolgoi. At Simandou in Guinea, we progressed negotiations towards the co-development of project infrastructure with our Chinese partners and the Government of Guinea. At Kennecott, we had the best All Injury Frequency Rate in its history. We also approved the start of underground mining and began extracting tellurium concentrate, a critical mineral used in solar panels, from waste.

Creating a workplace free from bullying, sexual harassment and racism requires strong leadership and the right culture. When we look at culture, it is the pattern of behaviours over time that are either accepted, not accepted or tolerated, and the processes and systems in our business. It starts with me as a leader and my behaviours. It is about leading by example, being humble and humane and empowering our leaders by reducing hierarchy.

The world needs copper to decarbonise, and we have strong assets and brownfield and greenfield expansion options. This year is about continuing to progress the development of the infrastructure at Simandou, while also maximising local content and supporting local suppliers. We will also be transitioning to operations at the Oyu Tolgoi underground project, with sustainable production on track for the first quarter of 2023. And then the US is a huge focus for us in being able to supply US copper in America.

Firstly, we are working with our customers. We partnered with our steel manufacturing customers to help address their Scope 1 (our Scope 3) emissions. In 2022, these partnerships included Baowu, Nippon Steel Corporation, BlueScope, Shougang and Salzgitter Flachstahl.

More broadly, we formed several new multi-commodity partnerships with customers such as Ford and Volvo Group. The aim of these partnerships is to provide solutions to decarbonise the value chain by offering low-carbon aluminium and materials for the future, such as lithium and copper. Another great example is our continued partnership with ABInbev, with whom we launched a specially marked, low-carbon beverage can made from Rio Tinto aluminium, using ELYSIS^TM technology. These cans included a QR code, leveraging START^TM, our blockchain technology that we launched in 2021, to inspire consumers to learn more about the cans’ low-carbon footprint.

We are also working with the product groups, our assets and suppliers on the switch to biofuels, fleet electrification and renewable projects to reduce emissions in the short and longer term. We joined the First Movers Coalition in 2022 to help commercialise zero-carbon technologies by harnessing purchasing power and supply chains in the difficult-to-abate areas of shipping, aviation, and trucking.

And we are working to decarbonise Commercial’s own operations through energy efficiencies, applying technical modifications to our vessels, and operational enhancements using data to optimise speed and routing. We have delivered 30% intensity reduction relative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) 2018 baseline on our owned and time-chartered marine fleet, and we are aiming to meet the IMO’s target of 40% by 2030, in 2025.

We progressed our marine and crew welfare strategy, commencing the Designated Owners and Operators initiative in 2022, which includes enhanced vetting and promotes Group-wide safety standards. We also initiated a Mining Shipping Safety Forum with our peers to raise safety and welfare standards across the bulk shipping industry.

We refreshed our Commercial strategy and successfully implemented the largest restructure since the Commercial function was established in 2018, simplifying the organisation across our “sell” (Sales and Marketing), “buy” (Procurement) and “move” (Marine and Logistics) core activity areas. It has increased our external focus and positioned us to better deliver the Group strategy. 

The new structure already started delivering results in 2022. We have been driving new multi-commodity customer partnerships, internal process simplification driven by our global procurement team, and decarbonisation initiatives in our supply chains, focussed on steel decarbonisation, marine emissions reduction, and mobile equipment at our operations.

On any given day, we have almost 250 vessels with 5,000 crew members on the water, so we take the safety and welfare of our marine crews very seriously. And as the largest shipper by tonnage in the world, it is an area we seek to influence; our aspiration is to be one of the leaders in the industry.

Global supply chains also remained disrupted for much of 2022. Our Commercial team has been working closely with our assets, customers, suppliers, and marine and logistics partners to manage the disruptions and market volatility to ensure operations at our assets are not impacted, and that we can continue to deliver on our commitments to our customers. 

Looking forward, we will focus on providing multi-commodity offerings to market that meet the growing demand for low-carbon solutions and expanding work with partners to find decarbonisation pathways for our own operations as well as theirs. And we will actively work towards our ambition to be a leader and influence industry-wide improvements in marine safety.