International Activities

Related Links

Company

The following company policies provide a sample of current approaches:

• BHP-Billiton - Working Responsibly (PDF) - charter; health, safety, environment and community policy.

• Newmont - Social Responsibility policies - community relations; environment, indigenous people, employee well-being.

• Placer Dome - Placer Dome have a company Code of Conduct that incorporates many aspects of corporate social responsibility, as well as a Sustainability Charter.

• Rio Tinto - Policies - include polcies for communities; occupational health; employment; environment; human rights; land access; political involvement; safety and, sustainable development.

• Royal Dutch / Shell Group - Principles - business; health, safety and environment; and, sustainable development.

Multistakeholder

• World Heritage and Mining (Adobe PDF 72KB) - Report of the technical workshop, Bureau of the World Heritage Committee, World Conservation Union (IUCN), Switzerland, September 2000. - Includes 10 principles agreed upon to underpin the relationship between mining and World Heritage interests.

• Environmental Management Systems - Best Practice Environmental Management in Mining Booklet, Environment Protection Agency, Australia, 1995.

• Designing a CSR Structure - Step-by-step guidelines - Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), 2002.

• ISO International Standard for Social Responsibility - International Standards Organisation (ISO) - A standard for Social Responsibility is currently being developed by the ISO.

• Draft Standard SI10000 - Social Responsibility and Community Involvement (Adobe PDF) - Standards Institution of Israel - 2001.

• Japanese Ethics Compliance Standard 2000 (ECS2000) - The Japanese and Engish versions are available.

• ISO14000 Environmental Management System - International Standards Organisation

• European Eco-Audit and Management System (EMAS) - The relevant European Commission legislation/regulation detailing EMAS is available.

Indicators

• Sustainable Development and the Australian Minerals Sector - Peter Hancock. Science, Technology, Environment and Resources Group, Parliament of Australia, Research Paper 24 2000-01, 6 March 2001. - Discusses sustainability indicators in relation to the Australian mineral industry.

• Sustainable Mines Roundtable
  The Roundtable on Indicators of Sustainable Development for Mineral/Material and Energy Systems (SMR) is a project of the Mining Life-Cycle Center, MacKay School of Mines at the University of Nevada and funded by the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other interested parties. The mission of the Roundtable is to develop indicators of sustainability to provide a means for assessing the status and trends of minerals/materials and energy systems.

Guidelines

• Guidelines for the Preparation of an Annual Environmental Report - Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) Western Australia (Adobe PDF 109kB)

• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines - The GRI is an international, multi-stakeholder effort to create a common framework for voluntary reporting of the economic, environmental, and social impact of organisation-level activity. A mining sector supplement is available.
  • The BHP Billiton 2003 and 2004 Health, Safety, Environment and Community (HSEC) Reports have been prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative 2002 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines

• A Framework for Public Environmental Reporting: An Australian Approach - Environment Australia, 2000. (The document is also available for download in Adobe PDF). - These guidelines have been developed specifically for the Australian context, based upon the GRI Guidelines.

• Environmental Reporting: Handbook for Small and Medium Size Businesses - Environment Australia, Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2001.

• Environmental, Social and Sustainability Reporting on the World Wide Web: A Guide to Best Practice - The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Next Step Consulting Ltd (Adobe PDF 804kB). The guidelines highlight how the Internet should be used for sustainability reporting, providing practical examples, and revealing the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ of web-based reporting. ACCA also have a range of other publications available on environmental and social reporting.

Examples

The following environmenal, social and sustainability reports provide examples of how different companies have approached performance reporting.

• Argyle Diamonds (Australia) - The Sustainability Report 2001 (Adobe PDF) has been prepared according to the Sustainabilty Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

• Newmont - Now and Beyond reports as well as individual site reports for 2001 to 2003 are available from the Social Responsibility section.

• Placer Dome (Canada) - PDAP Sustainability Report 2000 - Placer Dome Inc. Report 1999 (Adobe PDF 596KB). Sustaianbility reports are also available for many of the individual mining operations operated by Placer Dome. See the Placer Dome site to access.

• Rio Tinto (Australia/UK)- Social and Environmental Reviews. Individual site reports are also available.

• Teckcominco (Canada) - 2001 Sustainability Report (Adobe PDF 5.4MB).

• Tata Steel (India) - Corporate Sustainability Report 2002-2003. The companies reports have been prepared in line with the Sustainabilty Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) since 2000-2001.

• WMC (Australia) - Sustainability Report 2001 (Adobe PDF 1.1MB). Individual site reports are also available here.

Further Information

• Environment Australia - Public Environmental Reporting website - Provides links to public environmental reports produced by Australian companies including some from the mineral sector.

• Australian Minerals & Energy Environment Foundation (AMEEF) - An article discussing "Best Practice in Environmental Reporting". AMEEF Environmental Excellence Awards for the Australian minerals and energy industry.
  

• Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) - Information is available on Sustainable Development and the Australian Minerals Industry Code for Environmental Management a voluntary initiative that requires signatories to prepare publicly available annual environmental reports demonstrating performance against the Code principles.
  

• CERES - A coalition of investment, environmental, religious, labour and social justice groups acting as an advocate for corporate environmental responsibility and providing a forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue. Links to US company public environmental reports are provided.
  

• SustainAbility - A UK consultancy firm that helped create the UNEP criteria for assessing the standard of public environmental reporting. The site includes online case studies and information based on the 2001 report "Buried Treasure: Uncovering the Business Case for Corporate Sustainability".
  

• International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) - IISD, through the BSDGlobal website, have released the report 'Stepping Forward' an indepth examination of corporate sustainability reporting practices in Canada.
  

The following papers identify issues associated with performing an external verification of the implementation of the voluntary industry code of conduct developed by the Australian minerals industry.

• Environmental Auditing - Best Practice Environmental Management in Mining Booklet, Environment Australia, 1996.

• External Verification of the Australian Minerals Industry Code for Environmental Management: A Case Study. - Solomon, F., Australian Journal of Environmental Management 7(June): pp.91-98, 2000.

• Counting What Counts: External verification of the Australian Minerals Industry Code for Environmental Management. - Solomon, F. and PDAP Advisory Group, Melbourne, CSIRO Minerals, 1999.