Finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs
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The drive for innovation and continuous improvement is at the heart of our purpose
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Climate change is at the heart of our business strategy
We are 150
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Iron ore is the primary raw material used to make steel
7 things the world will need for a low-carbon future
Wind, sun and water – what else do you need to make renewable energy work?
Sustainability – the expectation, not the exception
Shaping our aluminium product offering to meet demand for greener metals
We work across six continents in around 35 countries
Look inside a mine of the future
Our most intelligent mine yet is pioneering new mining technologies
Rincon Project
A long-life, low-cost and low-carbon lithium source
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The world’s largest untapped high-grade iron ore deposit
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Sustainability Reporting 2022
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We’re targeting net zero emissions by 2050
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Rio Tinto PLC Annual General Meeting in London on 6 April 2023
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Breaking new ground for copper supply
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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.
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.
We are committed to learning the lessons and have taken decisive action to ensure that the destruction of a site of such exceptional cultural significance never happens again
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Legitimate
Accessible
Predictable
Equitable
Rights-compatible
Transparent
Source of continuous learning
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.
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.
We work hard to leave a lasting, positive legacy everywhere we work
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
We know our operations can have far-reaching impacts on society
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.
We have committed to follow a range of international standards, including:
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.
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.
Our salient human rights issues are those that stand to have the most severe impacts on people through our own activities or business relationships.
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:
Security
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Read our latest statement on modern slavery
We have strong processes to ensure our business acts in line with the law, local regulations and our values
At the heart of our sustainability strategy – and our business – are our people and their safety
How we process personal data provided or obtained through this website.
With the exception of the use of cookies, Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of our Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
With the exception of the use of cookies (explained below), Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
Part 1 of this Privacy Policy contains the Rio Tinto Data Privacy Standard, which provides an overview of Rio Tinto’s approach to personal data processing. There is additional information in the appendices to the Data Privacy Standard, including information about disclosures, trans-border data transfers, the exercise of data subject rights and how to make complaints or obtain further information relating to Rio Tinto’s processing of your personal data.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us at digital.comms@riotinto.com).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of this Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
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