2005 Big Tick winner

Company of the year in 2005

Big Tick winner

Company of the Year, Example of Excellence

BHP Billiton

Impact on Society Award 2005 in association with Tomorrow’s Company

Powerfully championed by the Chief Executive, BHP Billiton's commitment to building long term business success on sustainable and responsible business practice is evident across the whole company.

Processes

BHP Billiton is the world's largest diversified resources company with 35,000 employees working in 100 operations in 20 countries in major commodity businesses, including aluminium, energy and metallurgical coal, copper, ferro-alloys, iron ore and titanium minerals, and have substantial interests in oil, gas, liquefied natural gas, nickel, diamonds and silver.

Working with leading NGOs such as Oxfam and WWF, they are an inspiring example of how a company can tackle its most challenging sector issues by establishing global values and standards for employees and suppliers and rewarding behaviour accordingly, while building long term relationships with the governments and peoples on whose land they operate - relationships which deliver significant value to the business and at times life-changing economic and social impacts for impoverished and often disease ridden communities.
 
Formally committed to the United Nations Global Compact they are an active member of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development and a founding member of the Global Mining Initiative (GMI), which focused on the industry's role and responsibilities in sustainable development and are working with the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) to progress action plans for the industry. They are also one of the first companies in the world to report in accordance with the 2002 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

Their 'Guide to Business Conduct' provides employees with clear directions on doing business, including issues related to discrimination, conflicts of interest, bribery and human rights. The requirements of the BHP Billiton Charter, HSEC (Sustainability) Policy and HSEC Management Standards must be met by each employee at all their operations.  HSEC targets are directly linked to management performance evaluation and calculation of remuneration, all staff, including the Chief Executive Officer, have a personal financial incentive to ensure their HSEC commitments are met.

BHP Billiton was the first company in the industry to integrate HSEC (Sustainability) principles into a single HSEC Policy and detailed set of HSEC Management Standards. Following industry requests, they also posted their Standards on the Company website, sharing considerable intellectual property for the benefit of the industry as a whole.

The BHP Billiton Forum on Corporate Responsibility enables key international NGOs and community opinion leaders to discuss and debate relevant social and environmental matters.

Senior executive and BHP Billiton managers participate in the Corporate Community Leadership Program developed by Oxfam. The program exposes BHP Billiton managers to issues that arise from large infrastructure projects and also best practice community development techniques.  In 2005, BHP Billiton piloted a new program developed and delivered by Oxfam practitioners to improve its community development capacity in its South American operations and will now run the programme across the company.

Their 'whole-of-life' approach to the planning, development, operation and closure of their mines has resulted in the recent introduction of a 'Closure Standard' across their businesses that ensures all BHP Billiton investment opportunities and controlled operations have closure plans which identify, mitigate where possible, and manage both current and future health, safety, environment and community  and other business risks associated with closure.

Impact

  • The number of classified injuries per million workhours (CIFR) in 2003/4 was 4.95 compared with 5.38 for 2002/03 - an 8% decrease during the reporting period, an overall 26% decrease to date against their baseline, and is in line with their target for a 50% reduction by 2007.
  • With the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) they are undertaking a research project to evaluate the potential to certify mine sites on the basis of their Sustainable Development performance. The draft certification process was trialled first at a BHP Billiton site in October 2004.
  • The greenhouse intensity index used to monitor their emissions shows a 9% reduction in 2003/4
  • During 2004, their voluntary contributions to community programs totalled US$46.5 million, comprising cash, in-kind support and management time. This equates to 1.3% of pre-tax profit (3 year rolling average), which exceeds their target of 1%.
  • The establishment of its aluminium smelter in Mozambique delivered astonishing economic and social impacts for the country, with the smelter now accounting for 50% of the country’s exports and 7% of its GDP.
  • BHP Billiton joined an effort by South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland to eradicate malaria in a swath of the three countries measuring more than 40,000 square miles. In the three years since house-to-house insecticide spraying, surveillance and state-of-the-art treatment began, malaria incidence dropped in one South African province by 96%. In the area around the aluminum smelter, 76% fewer children now carry the malaria parasite. The impact on the business higher productivity with staff taking far fewer days off sick.
  • Working for the past 9 years with the Zululand Chamber of Business Foundation, the Regional Department of Education, Billiton Aluminium initiated the Partnership in Education Network (PEN) to enhance the quality of education in township and rural schools. At the inception of the project the matriculation pass rate was 39%. It has improved markedly to 67%, substantially higher than the regional rate of 47% and the provincial rate of 58%.

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