Critical Assessment of Sustainability Practices of Rio Tinto Limited | Desklib

This assignment critically assesses six research papers on sustainability and analyzes the sustainability practices of Rio Tinto Limited. The paper discusses Rio Tinto's approach towards people, relationships with the community, environmental protection, integrity of governance, value chain, and fundamentals of sustainability. The paper concludes that sustainability is a major challenge for businesses and Rio Tinto is committed to its operations in a responsible way.

Running Head: FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Part A.....................................................................................................................................2
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 1...........................................................................2
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 2...........................................................................3
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 3...........................................................................3
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 4...........................................................................4
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 5...........................................................................4
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 6...........................................................................5
Part B......................................................................................................................................5
Sustainability of Rio Tinto.................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Sustainability is the business approach for creating the long-term value with the help
of taking into considerations the operations of the organization in social, economical as well
as ecological environment. The practices of the sustainability are built on approach of
developing the strategies for fostering the longevity of the company. If the expectations on
the corporate responsibility increases as well as when the transparency becomes much more
prevalent then in that case the companies recognizes the need for acting on the sustainability.
In current scenario of the business, professional communications as well as having good
intentions are not enough (Boiral, Heras-Saizarbitoria & Brotherton, 2019). Hence in this
particular assignment, critical assessment will be done on the six research paper. Moreover,
discussion will be on sustainability practices of Rio Tinto Limited.
Discussion
Part A
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 1
The author Erica Schoenberger has stated that technological advancement has resulted
into promising for considerable improvements in the management of the mine waste. As per
author, the problem related to storage of tailings that is facilitated at any particular mine is
considered to be challenging aspect. The problems in relation to tailing storge are facilitated
in the environment of social as well as political. If people would learn more engineering then
social scientist ability and the analysts of policy to focus light on the complex issues of the
environmental and social surroundings of mining would be enhanced. All these issues give
the organization with something concrete to offer, in case someone is talking about the social
sciences under which, the organization is operating (Schoenberger, 2016).

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Critical Assessment of Research Paper 2
The authors Criag along with Michaela & John has examined the BHP Ltd.
environmental and social disclosures in response to specific expectations, which generally
changes across time. The research done by the authors has disclosed that managers have to
make disclosure of the information for the legitimacy of their company within society. There
exists linkage in between legitimizing the disclosures and survival of the disclosures. In
jurisdictions of Australia, limited organizations are required to provide environmental as well
as social information, the management of the organization in this respect, appears to provide
information in case when they are being coerced to do so. Therefore, levels of higher
disclosures occur when community concerns are aroused or when alternative particular
regulations are being introduced to eliminate management’s disclosures discretions.
However, in case of successful activities of corporate legitimization, there are low public
pressures of government to introduce disclosures legislations and control of social and
environmental reporting practices would be retained by the managers (Deegan, Rankin &
Tobin, 2002).
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 3
The authors Northey, Haque & Mudd has stated that there exists opportunities for the
organizations for the improvement of their standards of the reporting that can be done with
the help of clearly specifying type of the energy pertained for consumption by onsite-process
of the individuals. It is necessary to gain more insights of the industry. As per authors,
reporting quality of the CHG emissions could be improved with the help of stating the factor
of the emission and the boundaries of the analysis used. The author has also emphasized on
the long-term consistency in reporting is essential for evaluations of the industry accurately
as well as assessment of the key trends as well as relationships. Approx. fifty percent of
organizations in mining sector of listed companies of the Australian Stock Exchanges have

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reported the energy, water as well as materials as an indicator in their sustainability practices
reports. The organizations in mining industry are getting now more and more transparent in
respect of releasing the information in relation to environmental interactions and following
the protocols as well as the standards (Northey, Haque & Mudd, 2013).
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 4
The author Karen has stated that there should be use of guidance as normative
standards as it is useful in disasters. The author has stated that there should be enhancement
of the observance of the human rights and environmental standards by organizations, which is
operating across the globe. As per author, there exists linkage in between social behavior as
well as disaster essence. Multinational companies makes an effort for avoiding any kind of
adverse impact of their business activities and that of the partners business with the help of
following guidelines and engaging with the procedures of NCP. The growing consensus in
relations to the disasters is considered to be the social phenomenon. Moreover, traditions of
hazards disaster are considered to be disaster as extreme events. It arises when there are
interactions of agents of hazards with social system. The legal initiatives aim to find ways for
the improvement of the business record on social issues with the help of focus on
development, which arises in the sectors of human rights (da Costa, 2017).
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 5
The author Kathyayini Kathy Rao has stated that the significant positive relationship
exists between extent of reporting of environment and independent as well as female director
proportions on board. The author analyzed that positive relationship exists between
institutional investors and the reporting on environment. This indicates the requirement to
further measures to obtain much more accuracy of data on percentage of data that are held by
every investor of institutions. Moreover, there is no support by author on the negative
relationship between institutional reporting and board size as well as environment reporting.

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However, it depicts positive relationship. All those organizations includes their commitment
to environment in their missions as well strategies, they have to make considerations of the
board structure as well as composition impact. As it shows the significant impact on the
disclosure, which are made by the companies on environmental information (Kathy Rao, Tilt
& Lester, 2012).
Critical Assessment of Research Paper 6
The author Craig Deegan has stated that there is overwhelming favor by business
community regarding anti-regulations approach, under which, companies are left with the
flexibility to determine their social responsibilities, enlightened self-interest as well as
associated accountabilities, which has be retained as guiding mechanism in social
responsibility initiatives. The business organizational manager perceives corporate social
responsibilities as linked to the way as shareholders being defined. The free market
perspective is embraced by the government. This is promoted by business community and it
is decided against the introduction of national legislations, which pertains to corporate social
responsibilities. Therefore, the business organizations, who are being oppose to legislations,
they continues on the average basis in the production of the products that are damaged
environmentally to extent of market as well as demand of public (Deegan & Shelly, 2014).
Part B
Sustainability of Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is the Anglo-Australian multinational company, which is the leading group
of the mining. Its main focus is on finding, mining as well as processing the earth’s mineral
resources. All around the world, it is one of the largest corporations in metals and mining.
Rio Tinto has evolved in the development of some of the largest and the mines and operations
of best quality. The company prepares their sustainability reports to communicate their
highlights their performance in relation to sustainable development and case studies on their

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websites. The report prepared by the company is accordance with sustainable reporting
standards of GRI, sustainable development framework of ICMM as well as mining and
metals sector supplements of GRI. Moreover, Rio Tinto provides some of the good
progresses against the sustainability performance targets (Riotinto.com. 2019). Following
points shows how Rio Tinto practices their sustainability:
People- Rio Tinto is the company that prioritizes their people and considers them as
their most important asset. The company makes an effort to provide healthy, engaged
and safe workforce to sustain as well as expands their operations’ for the accelerations
of the innovative technology as well as contributing in the positive way towards local
communities and other stakeholders (Girella, Zambon & Rossi, 2019). Moreover, Rio
Tinto makes an effort to attract, retains as well as develops the engaged as well as
talented employees globally through the investment in their people all throughout of
their career and offer with the diverse and inclusive employment prospects that are
supported by competitive remunerations as well as linkage of benefits with the
performances (Kartadjumena & Rodgers 2019).
Relationships with the Community- The company has their approach towards their
communities and the social performance to maintain and secure the long lasting
relationship with communities, who are being affected by their operations and their
activities. Moreover, local language are used by the company to engage with
communities and developing programmes accordingly, which helps in reflecting
priorities that are agreed on mutual basis (Jones, Comfort & Hillier, 2019).
Protections of Environment- The environmental stewardship is important for
relationship with communities, host regulations and other. Therefore, in planning and
operating assets, Rio Tinto seeks to minimize and remediate the environmental
impacts on their activity. The company works with regulators and the host

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communities to monitor and manage these for the compliance with relevant
regulations. The work done by the company is in accordance with company’s
management system and the specific environmental standards as well as the business
processes. Moreover, participation is done by the company with industrial review in
relation to issues of tailings management as well as water stewardship (Hummel,
Schlick & Fifka, 2019).
Integrity of Governance- Rio Tinto is committed in doing business with at most high
level of transparency, integrity as well as accountability and with their business
partner with whom they shares company’s value. The approaches are adopted by the
company to prevent and resolve systematic and specific incidents by constantly
seeking for the improvement. For providing good level of governance and system
integrity, it becomes important for managing risks as well as expectations
(Stacchezzini et al. 2019).
Value Chain- Rio Tinto is committed in the responsible practices of their own
business operations and value chain. It takes seriously responsibility of the mining
and seeks to achieve higher standards of the industry and it expects that their partners
for responsibility towards the value chain as well. Rio Tinto is committed to deliver
long-lasting benefits with the help of sharing value, which can be created by the local
investments, opportunities, employments and so on (Badia et al. 2019).
Fundamentals of Sustainability- The goals as well as targets set out by Rio Tinto are
communicated across the organization for the improvement of the performance of the
sustainability as well as stretching of the thinking regarding what is being acceptable
and possible. The company is engaged with their stakeholders as this engagement
helps in offering the opportunities to create value foe shareholders as well as societies.
Further, company is also engaged in the participation in numerous relevant regional,

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national as well as global organizations as well as initiatives to inform sustainability
standards, management approaches as well as improvement in their performances.
The assessment as well as recognition of their performance is done by external
initiatives and the firms and the company in involved in the participation in
programmes of the industry accreditation for certain products (Dal Mas, 2019).
Conclusion
Therefore, the conclusion that can be given from the analysis is that the sustainability
is now becoming more prevalent for all the business organizations, across all the industries. It
has been analyzed that for addressing sustainability in the appropriate way, the organizations
requires for bridging the two critical gaps that is knowing to doing gap as well as compliance
to competitive advantages gap. Moreover, it can be said that sustainability is the major
challenge for the business organizations. Further, from the analysis on Rio Tinto, it can be
said that this company is committed for their operations in way in respect of risk and
responsibilities relating to business locally and globally business, communities as well as
health and safety of people. The sustainability reporting of Rio Tinto aligns with
sustainability reporting standards of Global Reporting Initiatives. Hence, sustainability
practice of business organization is vital for long-term prosperity of global organization.

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Reference
Badia, F., Dicuonzo, G., Petruzzelli, S., & Dell’Atti, V. (2019). Integrated reporting in action:
mobilizing intellectual capital to improve management and governance
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Boiral, O., Heras-Saizarbitoria, I., & Brotherton, M. C. (2019). Assessing and improving the
quality of sustainability reports: The auditors’ perspective. Journal of Business
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da Costa, K. (2017). Corporate accountability in the Samarco chemical sludge
disaster. Disaster Prevention and Management, 26(5), 540-552.
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Sustainability (pp. 11-24). Springer, Cham.
Deegan, C., & Shelly, M. (2014). Corporate social responsibilities: Alternative perspectives
about the need to legislate. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(4), 499-526.
Deegan, C., Rankin, M., & Tobin, J. (2002). An examination of the corporate social and
environmental disclosures of BHP from 1983-1997: A test of legitimacy
theory. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 15(3), 312-343.
Girella, L., Zambon, S., & Rossi, P. (2019). Reporting on sustainable development: A
comparison of three Italian small and medium‐sized enterprises. Corporate Social
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Hummel, K., Schlick, C., & Fifka, M. (2019). The role of sustainability performance and
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Jones, P., Comfort, D., & Hillier, D. (2019). Sustainability and the world's leading ocean
cruising companies. Journal of Public Affairs, 19(1), e1609.
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