Engagement
Our approach to community engagement involves providing information about our activities in a timely, clear, open and transparent manner as well as seeking feedback from communities to understand potential impacts, so they can be avoided or mitigated.
Communication activities during 2008 included:
- Community newsletters and fact sheets for the Mount Pleasant project, Hunter Valley South project and the Lower Hunter lands project and the Aboriginal Development Consultative Committee (ADCC)
- Community Trust annual report outlining projects supported and their outcomes
- Digital development of the internal staff newsletter, Mine Matters, which is now available publicly from the Coal & Allied website.
Coal & Allied has found its community consultative committees to be an important and effective way of consulting with local communities. Separate committees are now in place at the Mount Pleasant Project, Mount Thorley Warkworth and Hunter Valley Operations. During 2008, these committees continued to provide a forum for Coal & Allied and its local communities to share information and provide feedback on existing or proposed activities.
Other consultation activities during 2008 included:
- Developing an engagement strategy for the Hunter Valley. The first stage sought feedback from the community about how they wanted to be involved with consultation and communication from Coal & Allied. This feedback will guide future engagement activities
- All sites continued with near neighbour programmes throughout 2008 to maintain regular contact and engagement with our neighbours.
