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Hard copy, 24 pages. Or online at www.bhpbilliton.com
Taking account of BHP Billiton’s impacts across a huge range of operations and products is no mean feat. The world’s largest diversified resources company employs 39,000 people in 100 countries, mining and processing precious and base metals, uranium, diamonds, petroleum and coal. Yet it meets the reporting challenge with a clarity and self-confidence sometimes lacking in other companies.
In its summary report, BHP demarcates its responsibilities in easy-to-read sections and poses simple questions such as ‘Why do we do it?’ and ‘What are we hearing?’.
Critically, it also takes responsibility for its products beyond the ‘factory gates’, providing a discussion of the impacts of its products on society. Stewardship, according to BHP Billiton, runs through the product’s complete life-cycle, particularly important to a business that’s supplying materials, such as uranium, which have the potential to do a lot of harm. The company even accounts for the impact of its products on the climate – a rarity even among today’s leading reporters.
But if there is one omission, it would be BHP’s hesitancy to be upfront about its absolute growth in greenhouse gas emissions, which have risen in every reporting period bar one since 2002.
The justification is easy to make – the company has seen significant output growth, fed mainly by higher demand from China. Indeed, it has cut ‘greenhouse gas intensity’ (or emissions per unit of production) by five per cent since 2002. But to be truly cutting edge, BHP should say a little more about this fundamental conflict between growth and sustainability.
Oliver Wagg
Taking account of BHP Billiton’s impacts across a huge range of operations and products is no mean feat. The world’s largest diversified resources company employs 39,000 people in 100 countries, mining and processing precious and base metals, uranium, diamonds, petroleum and coal. Yet it meets the reporting challenge with a clarity and self-confidence sometimes lacking in other companies.
In its summary report, BHP demarcates its responsibilities in easy-to-read sections and poses simple questions such as ‘Why do we do it?’ and ‘What are we hearing?’.
Critically, it also takes responsibility for its products beyond the ‘factory gates’, providing a discussion of the impacts of its products on society. Stewardship, according to BHP Billiton, runs through the product’s complete life-cycle, particularly important to a business that’s supplying materials, such as uranium, which have the potential to do a lot of harm. The company even accounts for the impact of its products on the climate – a rarity even among today’s leading reporters.
But if there is one omission, it would be BHP’s hesitancy to be upfront about its absolute growth in greenhouse gas emissions, which have risen in every reporting period bar one since 2002.
The justification is easy to make – the company has seen significant output growth, fed mainly by higher demand from China. Indeed, it has cut ‘greenhouse gas intensity’ (or emissions per unit of production) by five per cent since 2002. But to be truly cutting edge, BHP should say a little more about this fundamental conflict between growth and sustainability.
Oliver Wagg
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