Community relations
Each of our operations is part of a local community. Our communities include Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations, employees and contractors, local businesses who provide goods and services to our operations, as well as near neighbours who live close to our operations and are most likely to be impacted by them.
Our approach
We set out to build enduring 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 as well as active engagement
- Effectively contributing to communities - this requires understanding the socio-economic environment and community's vision for the future and providing contributions that are sustainable and build long term community capacity.
This also includes Aboriginal communities, where our objective is to obtain and maintain cost effective legal access to land through building constructive relationships.
Results
The Rio Tinto Communities Standard sets out a framework for implementing the communities policy. Plans are in place at each operation to fill any gaps identified against the Standard and these plans are reviewed annually.
Effectively contributing to communities requires a good understanding of the socio-economic environment in which we operate, as well as the community's vision for the future.
For example in 2008, we rolled out the findings of the Hunter Valley socio-economic baseline study completed in 2007. This included presentations to senior managers and staff, Community Consultative Committees, all operational sites and the local chambers of commerce.
The information was also used to inform our community relations programmes, the Trust and the Aboriginal Development Consultative Committee.
