Dialogue
There are a number of processes across the business that encourage dialogue with our stakeholders. Our approach is to ensure these processes occur on a number of levels, thereby providing sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of our local communities while facilitating broader communications.
The following sections provide an outline of some of the key mechanisms we utilise for dialogue and their associated outcomes.
- Forum on Corporate Responsibility
- Employees and contractors
- Local communities
- Report dialogue
- Public policy
- Socially responsible investors
Forum on Corporate Responsibility
The BHP Billiton Forum on Corporate Responsibility (FCR) brings together representatives of our senior management team, the leaders of several key non-government organisations and community opinion leaders to discuss and debate social and environmental matters relevant to the Company. Members of the Forum, which meets twice a year, have an opportunity to provide advice and to challenge the views of our senior management on broad sustainable development issues. The Company is not bound by the advice of the FCR, and the FCR does not necessarily endorse the Company’s decisions. The Forum provides a means for direct and open dialogue about issues of interest to the wider community.
The Company has undertaken to widen the international membership of the Forum and, to this end, Dr Marcelo de Andrade, Chairman of Pró-Natura (an international environmental non-government organisation founded in Brazil) has joined. Mike Salamon, an Executive Director of BHP Billiton, is Chairman and Holly Lindsay, BHP Billiton’s Vice President Public Policy and Business Conduct, is Secretary.
See our Forum on Corporate Responsibility member profiles (PDF 84KB).
Employees and contractors
Our approach to internal communication aims to inform employees of, and share with them, the Company’s business strategy, objectives, policies, cultures and values; enhance the sharing of information across the business; provide consistency and avoid duplication; and provide a framework for all Company communication to protect and strengthen the BHP Billiton brand with all stakeholders.
A centralised communications resource (Investor Relations & Communications) provides global communication on areas of Company-wide importance and significance; appropriate resources and tools for other communication areas, to be used and tailored at the discretion of each CSG, operation or office’s communication and management team; and facilitation of cross-sharing of information between CSGs and offices.
Each CSG and operation is responsible for communications at a localised level. This results in messages targeted to the relevant audiences, reduced email through cascading of information rather than an ‘everyone gets everything’ approach and cost savings as the onus moves to the operations/offices to implement communication strategies in the most suitable manner available.
At the site level, in line with HSEC Management Standard 7, sites are required to ensure processes are in place to enable stakeholders, including employees and contractors, to participate in and commit to HSEC performance improvement initiatives. This may include processes such as committees representing both worker and management interests in HSEC matters.
We are committed to effective performance management, through regular formal and informal feedback and review, and open communication. Performance management involves:
- recognising and acknowledging excellent performance to motivate employees and encourage further achievement
- identifying the cause of poor performance and taking appropriate corrective action
- eliminating inappropriate behaviours from the workplace.
Each employee should receive a formal performance appraisal from his/her manager at least annually. Incentive awards paid by the Company are aligned to the relative performance of the business, assets and individuals.
Local communities
Our strategy is to engage our communities in our business where possible and establish an open communication channel where all parties feel they have the right to participate in discussions.
Our HSEC Management Standard 7 requires all operations to have systems in place to identify and work with stakeholders and to develop strategies to address their concerns and expectations. Sites are also required to record, register and address any complaints/concerns lodged by stakeholders.
Our operations are each required to have a community relations plan, a component of which must be a formal mechanism to engage with people in their local communities.
In some instances, members of the community are invited to participate in HSEC audits of their local operations, such as at the Minerva Gasfield Development in Victoria, Australia.
We are continually trying to improve the processes we use to engage people so that we are fully aware of their concerns and so that our communities understand the way we do business. One method our Tintaya operation is using to address their neighbours’ fears about possible environmental damage is to involve community members in our environmental monitoring. Through training, they are gaining a better understanding of the mining operation and our environmental procedures; and they are assisting us to ensure the mine maintains its environmental integrity (see HSEC Awards – Community).
Stakeholder perception surveys are tools that provide us with a valuable insight into how key stakeholders view us. The surveys enable us to gain a greater understanding about community priorities and concerns and also provide a means to track performance against one of our Charter success measures – that ‘communities in which we operate value our citizenship’.
As with society in general, we have become more sensitive to loss of culture and heritage and take great care in preserving traditional culture in areas around the world where we operate. An example of the type of project we undertake is the ongoing ‘Pirmal’ Project in Western Australia, a purpose-built place for the storage, management and protection of sacred Aboriginal cultural artefacts (see HSEC Awards – Community).
Report dialogue
In early 2003, we commissioned an independent survey to find out in which formats our stakeholders would prefer to receive our HSEC Report. In response to the feedback received, we now provide an expanded Full HSEC Report on our website and a printed summary report. This year we undertook a similar engagement exercise on our 2003 HSEC Report. Representatives of our various stakeholder groups were contacted and engaged in a structured conversation to provide feedback on how changes to the Report had been received and how the Report might be improved or further developed in future years.
At the end of the process, impressions both of the Report in general and the changes made in 2003 were overwhelmingly positive. A number of those surveyed commented that they had an increasingly positive view of the Company’s commitment to reporting, not only because of the reporting or performance, but because they were impressed by the commitment to understanding stakeholder needs in regards to non-financial reporting and they could see that we had made changes to our reporting in response to the feedback received.
The engagement exercise also identified a number of opportunities for us to continue to develop the Report to address issues that were seen as current areas of weakness. The key recommendations included the following:
- Improve reporting on key risks and liabilities. Use of the Report to explore key liabilities and risks was seen as one of the most important roles for the Report by many of the stakeholders. Stakeholders rated the Company’s performance in this aspect of reporting less positively than the other categories.
- Reflect more on dilemmas and learnings. Many stakeholders felt that the detached reporting style, and use only of a management voice, detracted from the Report’s ability to show directly how the Company has engaged its stakeholders, what key learnings from that process has been and what challenges remain.
- Develop a vision for a sustainable future. Many stakeholders saw declaring a vision for a sustainable future as pivotal to achieving excellence in sustainability.
- Consider improvements to transparency and to the verification process. Numerous stakeholders felt that there was still room to improve the Report’s transparency, with many considering further advances in verification processes contributing in this regard.
We look forward to further stakeholder feedback on our Feedback Form to see how we have progressed against these recommendations.
Public policy
The Company maintains a position of impartiality with respect to party politics. Accordingly, we do not contribute funds to any political party, politician or candidate for public office in any country. We do, however, attend selected events such as political party conventions for the purpose of better understanding the implications of policy development on business operations. Employees are free to participate in political activities as individuals and, if there is any doubt, they are asked to ensure that it is clear they are representing their personal views and not those of the Company.
The Company participates in public debate of policy issues that affect us in the countries in which we operate. Relevant issues are discussed with government officials, and we sometimes provide written advice about the likely impact of proposed policies on the Company. For example, in the last year we have provided information on the potential impacts of royalty regimes in Chile and South Africa and alternative policy settings regarding energy-related issues in Australia.
Socially responsible investors
During the year, we continued to participate in key external benchmarking initiatives by the socially responsible investment (SRI) sector that seek to measure the Company’s sustainable development performance against others in our sector. Participation in such programs has a dual benefit. Not only do they enable fund managers to screen funds on the basis of Company systems and performance that support sustainability but they also provide an external opinion on our sustainability performance in relation to others in our sector. They provide a useful tool internally to demonstrate where we are performing well and where we need to improve and, furthermore, they assist with supporting the business case for sustainability. The premise is that companies that manage their non-financial risks well also perform better in the long term.
The following sections outline our performance over the period in some of the key benchmarking programs.
- FTSE4Good Index
- Dow Jones Sustainability Index
- Business in the Community – Corporate Responsibility Index
- Business in the Environment
- Corp Rate
- Johannesburg Stock Exchange SRI Index
- Carbon Disclosure Project
FTSE4Good Index
Launched in 2001, the FTSE4Good Index series (www.ftse.com/indices_marketdata/FTSE4Good/index_home.jsp) has been designed to reflect the performance of socially responsible equities. The series covers four markets: US, Global, UK and Europe. Each market covered consists of both a benchmark and tradable index. Over the period, we maintained our inclusion in the UK FTSE4Good Index, after passing the strengthened criteria on human rights in the extractive sector.
Dow Jones Sustainability Index
The Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes (www.sustainability-index.com/) (DJSI) consist of more than 300 companies that represent the top 10 per cent of the leading sustainability companies in 60 industry groups in the 34 countries covered by the biggest 2500 companies in the Dow Jones Global Indexes. We are included within the DJSI and ranked second within our sector following the 2003 assessment; this is an improvement from the previous year when we were ranked third.
Business in the Community – Corporate Responsibility Index
Established in 2002 in the UK by Business in the Community (www.bitc.org.uk/index.html), the Corporate Responsibility Index has been developed to ensure a systematic approach to managing, measuring and reporting upon the various impacts that companies have upon society and their environment. The Index works as a management tool for companies to see how their corporate responsibility activities are integrated into their mainstream business operations. Of 139 participating companies in 2003, we ranked 20th overall with a score of 92.77 per cent.
Business in the Environment
Established in 1996, the Business in the Environment Index (www.bitc.org.uk/programmes/programme_directory/ business_in_the_environment/) is an indicator of corporate environment engagement produced by Business in the Environment in the UK. It operates in conjunction with the Corporate Responsibility Index. In 2003, 176 companies participated. We were ranked as sector leader in 2003 with a score of 96.64 per cent.
Corp Rate
The Corp Rate project (www.acfonline.org.au/corp_rate/ intro.asp), which commenced in 2003, brings together the expert opinions of three Australian organisations to assess the corporate governance, social and environmental performance of Australia’s top 50 listed companies. The Australian Consumers’ Association, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad and the Australian Conservation Foundation were respectively responsible for the corporate governance, social and environmental performance assessments. We were ranked third overall with scores of 100 per cent for Governance, 33 per cent for Environment and 57 per cent for Social aspects.
Johannesburg Stock Exchange SRI Index
The JSE Socially Responsible Investment Index (http://ftse.jse.co.za) was launched in 2004. This was the culmination of an extensive consultation and development process, which the JSE has guided over the past year as a means of helping to focus the debate on triple bottom line practices in South Africa. We are included within the index.
Carbon Disclosure Project
The Carbon Disclosure Project is an institutional investors’ survey of FT500 Global Index companies regarding risks and opportunities presented by climate change. We were included in the 2004 Climate Leadership Index, comprising the 50 ‘best in-class’ responses. The Carbon Disclosure Project report noted that we were the sole company in the metals and mining sector to be actively integrating carbon shadow prices into investment decisions involving investments with emissions over 100 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.
Feedback
Site Map
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions