Sustainability Practices of Rio Tinto

This article discusses the sustainability practices of Rio Tinto, a leading global mining group. It highlights the company's approach to community engagement, people management, environmental protection, governance integrity, and value chain responsibility. The article also emphasizes the company's commitment to sustainability goals and its participation in regional and international initiatives.

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Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Review of Articles..................................................................................................................2
Sustainability Practices of Rio Tinto......................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
In the business organization, sustainability is defined as adopting of the activities and
strategies that can meets the need of the company and the stakeholders, while enhancing and
protecting the human and the natural resources required in the future. Sustainability has
become increasingly important concept of strategy for the business organizations. It means
that the growth of the organization, which is not just speedy but it is also holistic and
authentic. It is consists of the management and the coordination of demands of social,
environment and financial as well as concerns to ensure ethical, responsible and success that
is ongoing (Charles Jr, Schmidheiny & Watts, 2017). The organization strives for minimizing
the environmental impact by recognizing the importance to protect the environment. The
business organization who follow sustainable practices, they do participates in the
environmental friendly practices and green practices to make sure that all of their processes,
activities of manufacturing as well as products considers the sustainability aspects in
addressing towards the concerns of the environments, while still retaining the good amount of
profit (Gmelin & Seuring, 2014). Therefore, under this assignment, discussion will be done
on the six research papers as well as sustainability practices of the Rio Tinto.
Discussion
Review of Articles
Craig Deegan has stated that most of the business community overwhelming favors
the approaches of the anti-regulations, under which companies are left with the flexibility to
determine the social responsibilities, associated accountabilities and the enlightened self-
interest that has to be retained as the guiding mechanism for social responsibilities initiatives.
The free market perspective has embraced by the government that is promoted by the
community of the business and decided against the introduction of the national legislation,

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which is pertaining to corporate social responsibilities. The companies, who are passionately
opposed to legislation, may continue to produce the products on average basis, which are
damaging the environment to the extent of demands of the pubic and the market (Deegan &
Shelly, 2014).
Karen has stated that the company should use the guidelines as normative standard
because of its usefulness in disasters, which is linked with the abroad business operations. It
helps in contribution towards enhancement of the observations, especially in respect of
human rights and environmental standards by the organizations, which are operating all
across the globe. It is with the help of following the guidelines with the procedures of NCP,
multinational corporations should avoid any kind of the adverse impact of their concerned
activities (da Costa, 2017).
Kathyayini has stated that there exists significant positive relationship between the
extent of reporting of environment and the proportions of independent as well as female
director on board. The author has not supported the existence of negative relationship
between the extent of reporting of environment and institutional investors and the board sizes
in comparison it has showed the existence of positive relationship. Generally, an
organization includes commitment towards environment in their strategies as well as their
mission. This type of organization considers the impact of board compositions as well as its
structure, as both of it shows the significant effect on the disclosed environmental
information by the companies. Hence, the author concludes that there exist positive
relationship among environmental reporting and the institutional investors. It helps in
indicating the further measures to obtain accurate data on the shares percentage that are held
by the every institutional investor (Kathy Rao, Tilt & Lester, 2012).

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Northey in his article has stated that there exists opportunities to improve the
reporting after specifying the energy type that pertains towards consumptions with the help of
on-site processes of the individual, which is necessary to gain more industry understanding.
The improvement of the reporting quality of CHG emissions would be possible by stating the
emissions factors used and the boundaries of the analysis. Moreover, the author has also
stated and emphasized on consistency in reporting for long-term, which is necessary for
evaluating accurately the state of industry as well as assessing the trends and key
relationships (Northey, Haque & Mudd, 2013).
Erica has stated in her article that advancement in the technology is promising the
considerable improvements in the management of mine waste. Although, this is not possible
without any significant political changes. The author stated in the article that problem of
tailing storage is the greatest technical challenge. This problem of tailing storage facilitates in
the environment of social and political. The ability of policy analysts and the social scientists
has focused light on the complex social as well as environmental issues of surrounding
mining that can be enhanced if people would be learning more about the engineering. The
mining is considered as the normal feature of the political problem. It provides the companies
with something that is concrete to offer; in case anyone is taking about the social licenses
under which, they are operating. Therefore, environmental issues should be addressed in the
original feasibility and the studies design of project mining (Schoenberger, 2016).
Craig has stated in his article after the examination of the disclosures of the social and
environmental aspects of the BHP Ltd. that it provides their response to the specific social
expectations, which can change across time. The managers of the organization are engaged in
disclosing the information in order to fulfill the expectations of the society and legitimize
their organization within society. There has been the evidence that has proved that greater
media attention helps in stimulating greater corporate disclosures. There exist link between

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corporate survival and legitimizing the disclosures. In Australia, it is required for the limited
regulatory to provide the environmental as well as social information; in this case
management provides this information when they are being coerced to do so. Therefore,
disclosures of higher level occurs when there arouse community concerns or any specific
regulations is being introduced to eliminate the management discretion of disclosures.
However, in case of successful legitimizing activities of the corporate, the public pressures
for introducing legislations of disclosures would be low and as a result of which the managers
would be able to retain the control of the social as well as environmental practices (Deegan,
Rankin & Tobin, 2002).
Sustainability Practices of Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is the Anglo Australian multinational company that was founded in the year
1873, is the world’s largest metals as well as Mining Corporation. As the company is pioneer
in metals and mining, it produces the materials that are essential for the progress of human.
The company is the leading the global mining group, which focuses on the finding, mining as
well as processing the mineral resource of the Earth. Rio Tinto is known for developing some
of the largest and the best quality mines, operations as well as its people, who are working in
company all across 35 countries in six continents (Bendell, 2017). The company prepares as
well as communicates the sustainability report by publishing it to their website, highlighting
their performance on the aspect of sustainable practices in the organization. The sustainability
report of the organization is prepared in accordance with GRI sustainable reporting standards,
GRI mining and metals sector supplements and ICMM sustainable reporting standards
(Riotinto.com. 2019). The sustainability report of the company is based on the following
aspects:
 Relationship with Community: The approach of Rio Tinto towards the
communities and the social performance is to secure as well as maintain the long-

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lasting relationship with the communities, who are affected by operations and the
activities. Local language is used by the company for engaging with communities and
developing programmes that helps in reflecting those priorities, which is mutually
agreed. The frameworks as well as standards of communities and the social
performance help the company for enabling to identify and managing any social risks.
Hence, Rio Tinto builds the relationship to secure the community in operations.
 People: One of the most important assets of the company is the people of company.
Rio Tinto is responsible for providing safety, healthy and engaged environment to
their workforce in order to sustain and expand their business operations to accelerate
the innovative technology and also positively contributing towards the partnership
among the local community as well as other stakeholders (Halme & Korpela, 2014).
 Protecting Environment: The stewardship of the environment is important for
enhancing the relationship with communities, host regulators and others. The
company seeks for the minimization as well as remediating the environmental impacts
on the business activities. The company works with host regulators and communities
to manage and monitor in order to comply with relevant regulations. Moreover, the
company follows the management system and the specific business processes and
standards (Baumgartner, 2014). In this respect, the company has participated with the
industry review relating to the issues such as water stewardship and tailings
management. Approx 68% of the total uses of the electricity are used across the
company from the renewable sources such as wind, solar as well as hydro. Further,
Rio Tinto keeps the understanding of the business risks under the various scenarios of
climate and they make sure that the facilities of the company are resilient to weather
extremes and climate variations (Laszlo & Cescau, 2017).

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 Governance Integrity: Rio Tinto follows higher level of the transparency, integrity
as well as integrity practices in the operations of the business activities as well as with
their business partners, with whom the company shares values. Various approaches
are adopted by the company to prevent and resolve particular as well as systematic
incidents for seeking constantly the ways for the improvements. The company
manages the risks as well as expectations for having good governance and the system
of the integrity (Dashwood, 2014).
 Value Chain: Rio Tinto group is committed and responsible for their own business
practices and operations throughout of their value chain. The company is determined
for taking their mining responsibility and seeks towards achieving highest industry
standards and it expects similar commitments from their value chain partners. Further,
the company is also committed to deliver long-lasting benefits to all the parties
interested with the help of sharing values created by the local investments,
employment, taxes, opportunities and procurements (Rowledge et al. 2017).
 Fundamentals of Sustainability: The goals as well as the targets are set by the
company and are communicated across the entire organization to improve the
performance of sustainability and company always strives its thinking towards what is
acceptable and what is not (Welford, 2016). Moreover, the company works with the
stakeholders. This engagement with the stakeholders helps to offer the opportunities
in the respect of creating values for shareholders as well as society as a whole. In
addition, the company participates in the number of initiatives of the regional,
national as well as international organizations and inform regarding their
sustainability measures, approaches of management and improving their
performances (Riotinto.com. 2019).

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Conclusion
Therefore, it is analyzed from the analysis that sustainability practices helps the
business organizations in minimizing the negative impact on the economy, community,
society and global or the local environment. It has been analyzed that the company following
the sustainability practices helps in meeting the triple bottom line. The company develops as
well as integrates the detailed vision of the sustainability into the strategic plan of long-term
for creating the long-lasting value and building the trust of the public. Further, it has been
found from the analysis of Rio Tinto that the company is following the sustainability
practices and is committed for operating the operations of the business ethically and
responsibly in respect of health and safety of communities and people as well as globally and
locally risk and responsibilities of business. In addition, the company aligns their
sustainability reporting with the Global reporting initiatives of sustainability reporting
standards.

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Reference
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