Aerial photo of employees walking along dirt road on mountain ridge above Canga East Camp, Simandou, Guinea

Human Rights

Our commitment to human rights is core to our values. It is fundamentally about treating people with dignity and respect – our employees and contractors, workers in our value chain, communities where we live and work and others affected by our activities and business relationships. We believe respect for human rights starts with our everyday actions.

Respecting human rights relies on good governance, knowing our potential impacts, empowering and enabling our people, and working with others to help avoid adverse human rights impacts from occurring in the first place.

We take our commitment to human rights seriously – from governance of our human rights approach, which is overseen by the Board Sustainability Committee, to processes like pre-screening suppliers and providing human rights training to key employees. 

Our approach to respecting human rights

We know we can affect human rights everywhere we work and beyond our operations. We also know that what we do in one location may affect people’s trust in how we will respect human rights elsewhere.

We are committed to respecting internationally recognised human rights as set out in the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights and implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). 

We voluntarily uphold a range of other international standards including the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR), the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (OECD Guidelines), the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC), the International Finance Corporation’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards, the International Council on Mining and Metals Mining Principles and the UN Global Compact’s 10 Principles.

Consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we are committed to acknowledging and respecting Indigenous peoples’ connections to lands and waters and strengthening the application of the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent of affected Indigenous communities in line with the International Council on Mining and Metals Position Statement on Indigenous Peoples and Mining.  

At a minimum, we comply with national laws, applying our own standards when they are more rigorous. When national laws conflict with our standards, we look for ways to encourage the adoption of international standards, including through multi-stakeholder dialogue. We may also reconsider whether we can operate in such locations.

We recognise the importance of acting on any involvement we might have in human rights harm through our business relationships, consistent with the UNGPs. We look for ways to work with our business partners to advance respect for human rights in line with international standards and our values. At our non-managed operations, this may include sharing best practice on complaints handling, discussing human rights issues at joint management meetings and making our experts available to support the capacity of operational employees.

Voluntary Principles on Security & Human Rights Reports

Voluntary Principles on Security & Human Rights Reports 2022
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Juukan Gorge

We are committed to learning the lessons and have taken decisive action

Everyday Respect Report

In February 2022, we published a comprehensive external review of our workplace culture, commissioned as part of our commitment to ensure sustained cultural change across our global operations. The review was carried out by former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick. It identified disturbing findings of bullying, sexual harassment, racism and other forms of discrimination throughout the company, which are linked to various human rights including rights to non-discrimination, just and favourable conditions of work and security of person.

The report, which outlines 26 detailed recommendations, will inform work being carried out to improve how we prevent and respond to discrimination and unacceptable workplace behaviour.

Find out more about the Everyday Respect Report >

Progress in 2022

Governance

The Sustainability Committee has overarching accountability for our approach to human rights. We are working on improving our human rights performance, strengthening a range of areas to help prevent our involvement in adverse human rights impacts, and providing for, or cooperating in, remediation when we identify that we have caused or contributed to harm.

In 2022, we revised our Human Rights Policy to advance our human rights performance in line with our business objectives and values and to meet external commitments and emerging regulatory requirements. The updated policy reflects emerging human rights areas including just transition, human rights defenders and human rights due diligence. It also reiterates our commitment to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the IFC Performance Standards, the UN Global Compact’s ten principles, the Maritime Labour Convention, the ICMM Mining Principles, and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (Voluntary Principles).

Our Group Internal Audit (GIA) team reviewed the design of our modern slavery controls and presented summary observations and opportunities to the Sustainability Committee in October 2022. The internal audit identified opportunities to enhance management of third-party risks across non-financial domains (including modern slavery); to improve governance over the management of modern slavery risk; and to further improve Board visibility of modern slavery disclosures. This was part of a three-year phased approach to provide assurance across our human rights programme.

We will implement the actions from the internal audit during 2023, and will continue to work with GIA to provide further assurance over our human rights governance framework. Obtaining feedback from stakeholders, including receiving complaints or registering grievances, is a vital part of our human rights approach. Our stakeholders have access to myVoice, our confidential, anonymous and independently operated whistleblowing programme, through which human rights grievances can be reported.

Salient human rights issues

Consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we acknowledge and respect Indigenous peoples’ connection to lands and waters and commit to demonstrate progress towards, or achievement of, Free, Prior and Informed Consent of affected Indigenous communities across all phases of the asset lifecycle.

Aligned with the UNGPs, we continue to mature our processes and systems. For example, we identify the priority human rights issues that could severely impact people through our activities or business relationships. These issues, listed below, consider our operational footprint, value chain and external contexts and remain unchanged from 2021:

  • Land access and use
  • Indigenous peoples’ rights
  • Security
  • Inclusion and diversity
  • Community health, safety and wellbeing
  • Workplace health and safety
  • Labour rights (including modern slavery)
  • Climate change and just transition (respecting human rights while transitioning to a low-carbon economy)

In 2022, several assets, including Simandou, Oyu Tolgoi and those in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia undertook risk assessments to review their priority human rights issues. These assessments provide assets with a more complete understanding of their risk context and are an important part of our commitment to implement the UNGPs. This work will continue into 2023.

Our business relationships

It is important that we address our potential involvement in human rights harm that may occur through relationships with our suppliers, customers and joint venture partners. We engage and collaborate with our business partners to advance respect for human rights in line with international standards, the UNGPs and our values.

Using a risk-based approach, we pre-screen potential business partners on human rights and require suppliers (including subcontractors) to adhere to our Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes respect for human rights.

More than 17,000 business partners completed baseline screening in 2022, and over 200 were escalated for human rights review, which is approximately a 60% increase compared to 2021. Our Commercial team also held conversations about human rights with several strategic suppliers at supplier relationship meetings.

Modern slavery provisions are included in our standard global supply contract and purchase order terms and conditions, as well as our marine chartering contracts. During 2022, we updated human rights considerations in our Supplier Code of Conduct and contributed to updating our code of conduct, The Way We Work, which was launched internally in February 2023. In 2023, we will perform a more detailed review of the Supplier Code of Conduct to further clarify our expectations of suppliers on human rights and other matters.

Capacity building on human rights

In 2022, we enhanced our in-house human rights expertise by establishing a dedicated human rights team within the Communities and Social Performance Area of Expertise. However, we also believe everyone in the business has a role to play in implementing our commitment to respect human rights.

Our employees and contractors develop a better understanding of human rights issues through general and targeted training. In 2022, our training objectives were to demystify human rights and identify ways to integrate and operationalise human rights. We hosted 39 human rights workshops for our teams in Ethics and Compliance, the Business Conduct Office, Marine, Communities and Social Performance, as well as joint venture partners and other relevant stakeholders. We also launched an online learning module to raise awareness about modern slavery. This module is compulsory for our Commercial, Legal, Ethics and Integrity, and Communities and Social Performance Area of Expertise teams, but it is available to everyone in the business. Training feedback results indicated that over 90% of participants now understand what modern slavery is, how to report a concern and what we are doing to address risks.

Our Marine team continued to develop their Seafarer Welfare and Safety Programme, which included dedicated human rights training for more than 108 marine officers and 77 seafarer crew members in the Philippines and India.

We have summarised our human rights training records in the 2022 Sustainability Fact Book

We also participated in a number of collaborative human rights initiatives in 2022 and continued our external engagement with peers, civil society organisations, governments and others to help inform our approach to human rights management.

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Update on the Panguna Mine

The independent Legacy Impact Assessment is ongoing

Our work on the ground

In line with the UNGPs, we undertake human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse human rights impacts with which we may be involved. Human rights due diligence comprises four elements: identifying and assessing our impacts; integrating the findings from those assessments into relevant internal functions and processes and taking appropriate action; tracking the effectiveness of our response; and communicating how impacts are addressed. We prioritise action around our salient human rights issues. We recognise that effective management of human rights issues requires daily vigilance – from the way we work with local communities to the way we choose our suppliers and beyond.

Training

As human rights issues are complex, and not always readily apparent, we build our employees’ understanding through general and tailored training. All our sites are required to provide human rights training to staff, contractors and visitors. We also offer specialised training to key functions such as Procurement, Sales and Marketing, Exploration, Security, Marine and Communities and Social Performance, and look to build awareness on our salient human rights issues and how to manage them.

Complaints, disputes & grievances

In line with the UNGPs and our responsibility to respect human rights, we are committed to providing for, or co-operating in, remediation when we identify we have caused, or contributed to, human rights harm. We also look to play a role in remediation where we are directly linked to harm through our products, services or operations. We understand the importance not just of agreeing to legitimate remediation, but ensuring it is implemented by our operational teams and is fit for purpose.

Talking to our stakeholders and getting feedback, including receiving complaints, is a vital part of our human rights approach and due diligence process. It is a crucial part of understanding systemic issues and helps us improve the way we run our operations.

All of our sites must have a complaints, disputes and grievance mechanism, in line with the UNGPs' criteria for effective non-judicial grievance mechanisms.

Criteria of effectiveness for non-judicial grievance mechanisms

1. Legitimate

2. Accessible

3. Predictable

4. Equitable

5. Rights-compatible

6. Transparent

7. Source of continuous learning

8. Based on engagement & dialogue

In addition to our site-level mechanisms, we have a confidential, anonymous and independently operated whistleblowing programme, myVoice, which is available to all employees and their families, suppliers, contractors, business partners and community members. We make it clear in our Supplier Code of Conduct that suppliers have access to myVoice.

Reviewing our grievance mechanisms

In 2021, we reviewed – via internal audit – our site-level complaints, disputes and grievance mechanisms, including the extent to which they meet the UNGPs’ criteria for effective non-judicial grievance mechanisms. 

The reviews found opportunities for improvement, including better governance and increased community engagement and dialogue to help meet the needs of communities, and especially vulnerable groups. 

Follow-up actions include clarifying site-level roles and responsibilities, developing clearer guidance and training on design and implementation, and improved reporting. 

Enhancing these critical local processes will help provide communities with more transparent, accessible and legitimate channels to have their complaints heard and resolved, improve the way we work, and ultimately, help contribute to more trusting relationships between our company and the communities where we operate. 

Studying - QMM

Social & Economic Development 

We work hard to leave a lasting, positive legacy everywhere we work
QNS&L rail line, IOC

Value Chain 

As consumers become more mindful of the sustainability of the products they choose, they want reassurance that the materials consumed reflect responsible practices throughout the value chain
Photo of employee talking to the chief in the Mafindou community near Beyla, Guinea

Communities

We know our operations can have far-reaching impacts on society

Measuring and reporting on our performance

Our internal assurance processes help us to track our performance. We conduct periodic business conformance audits which audit a business or operation against our health, safety, environment and communities performance standards and management system. This includes compliance with the human rights section of our communities and social performance standard. Each of our product groups conduct an annual self-assessment and certification of social risks including human rights risks. Given the nature of our Commercial team’s work, its certification focuses on managing human rights risks relating to our business partners, with a focus on labour rights risks. Our Group Internal Audit team also conducts third line assurance on human rights related issues (such as its grievance mechanism review conducted in 2021).

Our annual Modern Slavery Statement explains the risks of modern slavery in our operations and supply chains, the actions we take to assess and address those risks and how we assess the effectiveness of those actions. 

We have also taken steps to increase our transparency around our human rights performance, reporting annually on our human rights performance through our online Annual Report, Sustainability Fact Book and VPSHR report.

Our human rights performance is also assessed through various external initiatives including the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, Copper Mark and the International Council on Mining and Metals.

Human Rights Policy
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Role of Civil Society Organisations
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Corporate Human Rights Benchmark Statement
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Rio Tinto Corporate Human Rights Benchmark Response
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Sustainability reporting

We have a responsibility to extract the full value from the minerals and materials we produce in the safest and most sustainable way possible

Our human rights commitments

We have committed to follow a range of international standards, including:

Human rights and our supply chain

We recognise the importance of acting on any involvement we might have in human rights harm through our business relationships, including with our suppliers, in line with the UNGPs.

Using a risk-based approach, we pre-screen potential business partners on human rights and require suppliers (including subcontractors) to adhere to our Supplier Code of Conduct, which requires respect for human rights. 

Our standard global supply contract and purchase order terms and conditions requires that suppliers take reasonable steps to prevent and address modern slavery in their supply chains, and grants us the right to audit our suppliers for compliance against these requirements. Our Marine chartering contracts also include a modern modern slavery provision.

Public guides

Why Agreements Matter
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6.93 MB
Why Cultural Heritage Matters
Why Cultural Heritage Matters
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7.89 MB
Why Cultural Heritage Matters [ES]
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4.95 MB
Why Cultural Heritage Matters [FR]
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4.99 MB
Why Cultural Heritage Matters [MN]
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5.08 MB
Why Cultural Heritage Matters [PT]
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4.97 MB
Why Gender Matters
Why Gender Matters
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2.79 MB
Why Gender Matters [ES]
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1.65 MB
Why Gender Matters [FR]
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2.03 MB
Why Human Rights Matter
Why Human Rights Matter
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8.55 MB
Why Human Rights Matter [ES]
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4.28 MB
Why Human Rights Matter [FR]
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4.29 MB

Working with human rights defenders

We know we do not always get it right and welcome conversations and partnerships that help us improve. We value diversity of thoughts and ideas, and know that civil society organisations and other human rights and environmental defenders can be important advocates for change. Human rights defenders are people who, individually or with others, act to promote or protect human rights and protect the environment in a peaceful manner. We respect the human rights of these individuals and groups and recognise the importance of an open civic space. We make it clear that attacks on human rights and environmental defenders will not be accepted, including when we engage with our business partners.

Our statement on the role of civil society organisations outlines our approach to engaging with civil society organisations and other human rights defenders. This includes regular dialogue with civil society organisations on human rights issues.

Salient human rights issues

Our salient human rights issues are those that stand to have the most severe impacts on people through our own activities or business relationships.

Updating our salient human rights issues

In 2021, we updated our salient human rights issues. This was informed by workshops with our product groups where we assessed potential human rights impacts and undertook a severity analysis in line with the UNGPs (ie assessing the scale, scope and remediability of each impact). These workshops also provided an opportunity to conduct human rights refresher sessions with our teams, helping ensure we were starting with similar foundational knowledge and reinforcing our human rights commitments.

Once we identified each product group’s salient human rights issues, we then looked for commonalities to help inform our group-wide salient issues. The resulting eight salient issues help prioritise our due diligence activities and guide our external engagement and interaction on human rights.

In line with the human rights due diligence process set out in the UNGPs, we manage our salient human rights issues through ongoing risk management processes. These aim to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how we address any involvement in adverse human rights impacts.

Our salient human rights issues are:

  • Land access and use
  • Indigenous peoples’ rights
  • Security

  • Inclusion & diversity
  • Community health, safety and wellbeing
  • Workplace health and safety
  • Labour rights
  • Climate change and just transition

Land access and use

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to an adequate standard of living
  • Right to property
  • Right to clean drinking water and sanitation
  • Right to health
  • Right to participate in cultural life

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

We manage sustainable change for local community members that may be resettled, economically displaced or experience restricted access to land, as a result of our operations.

We ensure that resettlement is avoided where possible, and where unavoidable complies with the International Finance Corporation Performance Standard 5 on “Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement” so that resettled people and communities have their standard of living and livelihood sustainably restored or improved over the long term as a result of the resettlement.

Indigenous peoples’ rights

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to non-discrimination
  • Rights to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent
  • Right to participate in cultural life
  • Rights to land, territories, waters, resources and traditional knowledge
  • Rights to language, cultural and spiritual identity

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

Long before mining starts, our teams do cultural and environmental studies to understand the area and look for ways to reduce any potentially negative impacts.

We respect Indigenous peoples’ connection to their traditional lands in a way that respects their culture and right to self-determination. We strive to achieve the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of affected Indigenous communities as defined in the International Finance Corporation's Performance Standard 7 on “Indigenous Peoples” and the International Council on Mining and Metals Position Statement on Indigenous Peoples and Mining. One way we demonstrate our commitment is through making agreements with Indigenous communities.

Read more about our agreements with traditional owners >

Security

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to life
  • Right to liberty and security of person
  • Right to freedom from arbitrary detention
  • Right to freedom from torture, cruel, inhumane and/or degrading treatment
  • Right to freedom of movement

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

We train public and private security personnel, to ensure they're aware of our expectations in relation to securing our operations in a way that respects human rights. Our online VPSHR training is mandatory for all security personnel at high-risk sites and is strongly recommended elsewhere.

Inclusion & diversity

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to non-discrimination
  • Right to just and favourable conditions of work 
  • Right to participate in cultural life
  • Right to family
  • Right to freedom of religion

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves. 

As stated in our inclusion and diversity policy, we set stretch targets to achieve an inclusive and diverse workplace. With respect to gender diversity, we have established clear targets to improve the number of women in our organisation, at all levels. We have rolled out a global policy for gender-neutral parental leave and revised our policy on inclusion and diversity to reinforce our expectations around behaviours and personal accountability.

Community health, safety and wellbeing

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to life
  • Right to health
  • Right to an adequate standard of living including the right to food
  • Right to clean drinking water and sanitation
  • Right to education

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

We work to prevent and minimise impacts – social, environmental and health and safety –by conducting detailed assessments, in consultation with local communities, and by following robust internal standards and practices. In accordance with our communities and social performance standard, we identify and manage social, economic, environmental, cultural and human rights impacts throughout the life cycle of our projects.

Workplace health and safety

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to life
  • Right to health
  • Right to just and favourable conditions of work
  • Right to security of person

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

Through our Health, safety, environment and communities policy, we make the safety and wellbeing of our employees and contractors (and communities) our priority. We have global safety standards which address key areas of risk. The standards provide consistency in safety management and performance across our global operations and projects.

Labour rights

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to life
  • Right to just and favourable conditions of work
  • Right to freedom from slavery
  • Freedom from child labour
  • Right to freedom of association and collective bargaining

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

We pre-screen suppliers to identify risks relating to their human rights performance.

Through The Way We Work and our Supplier Code of Conduct, we create clear expectations for employees and suppliers (including contractors) to safeguard labour rights.
Our standard contractual terms also require compliance with our Supplier code of conduct. We also now have a modern slavery clause as detailed in our Modern Slavery Statement.

Climate change and just transition

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN RIGHTS THAT COULD BE IMPACTED

  • Right to an adequate standard of living
  • Right to just and favourable conditions of work

EXAMPLES OF HOW WE MANAGE RISKS

Early and ongoing identification of risks and opportunities within our operations and in our value chain. 

Engaging in social dialogue to support fair and inclusive practices. 

Participating in collective efforts such as the collaboration by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the B Team, which brings together global companies to create tools and guidance to help enable a more worker and community-centred transition to a net-zero economy. 

Developing closure plans informed by community, Traditional owners and regulator expectations regarding future land use and their social, cultural and environmental objectives for a transition to viable post-mining land use. 

Related content

Modern Slavery Statement

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Read our latest statement on modern slavery
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We have strong processes to ensure our business acts in line with the law, local regulations and our values
Health, Safety and Wellbeing

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At the heart of our sustainability strategy – and our business – are our people and their safety