Communities and government
Pictured: Jake Watt (front) with his dad Rick (middle) and the instructors from Healthy Dads Healthy Kids, David Lubrans (far left) and Chris Tyrie (far right).
Our approach
Our operations are part of local communities which include Aboriginal communities, employees and contractors, near neighbours who live close to our sites, as well as local businesses who provide goods and services to our operations.
We set out to build relationships with all of our communities that are characterised by mutual respect, active partnership and long term commitment. In practice this means:
- Having robust relationships with our communities of interest - this requires understanding the issues and needs of different stakeholders
- Effectively contributing to communities by understanding the socio-economic environment and communities' vision for the future, and providing contributions that are sustainable and build long term community capability.
The Rio Tinto Communities Standard provides a framework for implementing our communities' policy.
Each year we prepare community plans to identify community priorities and manage our activities. Baseline community assessments also inform the development of long-term plans and strategies for community engagement.
We regularly engage with a wide range of Government and opposition members, and officials at a local, state and federal level. This engagement ensures our vision and plans are understood by government, including risks and opportunities for communities.
2010 activity
A new Rio Tinto communities five year target was introduced during 2009. The new target requires operations to have locally appropriate, publicly reported social performance indicators that demonstrate a positive contribution to the economic development of the communities and regions where we work, consistent with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Rio Tinto has partnered with the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at The University of Queensland to develop the performance targets and will use a number of sites, including our Hunter Valley Operations, to inform this work. Performance against the targets will be publicly reportable and implemented from 2012.
During 2010 we carried out an assessment against the Rio Tinto Communities Standard at Blair Athol Mine and Clermont Mine (assessed as the Clermont Region). The assessment is carried out at each site every three years. Members of the community are invited to participate in a review of our performance as part of the assessment process. Outcomes of the Clermont Region assessment focused on establishing a combined community relations plan for Aboriginal and broader community relations activity; incorporating social risk assessments into the site planning process; mapping stakeholders and developing a centralised stakeholder database; and ensuring increased awareness of our cultural heritage management requirements amongst employees and contractors.
We introduced a community and stakeholder engagement tracking system in 2010. The system enables employees who engage with external stakeholders to maintain a centralised record of contact details, engagement, any commitments made, and general activity in the community, including community investment. The system will bring a new level of rigour and transparency to our community and stakeholder engagement, ensuring that our community relations and stakeholder engagement remains timely, targeted and consistent in approach. Community and stakeholders have the right to access and correct any personal information that is held about them. Contact us by email.
Read more about our community activities by selecting from the navigation menu.