Our Sustainability Challenges
Our sustainability challenges are those issues that we believe may have a material impact on our ability to be a successful business.
In determining those issues of materiality we have utilised a number of processes, which included:
- an analysis of the non-financial risks at the Customer Sector Group (CSG) level as identified through our Enterprise-Wide Risk Management system
- an analysis of the non-financial risks associated with our CSG business strategies
- an analysis of NGO and other stakeholder dialogue and concerns
- an analysis of queries from socially responsible investment analysts
- an analysis of BHP Billiton's performance versus industry peers in key sustainability indices, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index
- results from our Company-wide HSEC Audits and Self Assessments.
A workshop was convened with representatives from each of our Customer Sector Groups and key functional areas to identify, evaluate and prioritise issues with the potential to affect shareholder and stakeholder value. To support unbiased decision-making, a Decision Matrix was used as a tool to identify and rank those factors with the potential to impact value creation. The matrix utilised is illustrated below.
| Value to BHP Billiton | ||
|---|---|---|
| High | ||
| Low | ||
| Low | High | |
| Value to Stakeholders |
Those issues that were rated as high in value to both BHP Billiton and our stakeholders were then presented to our Forum on Corporate Responsibility for debate and consideration. This resulted in a consolidated list of the top five sustainability challenges for BHP Billiton. The challenges are not in order of importance and require parallel action:
