Table of Contents

1.Abstract
2.Introduction of BHP as a Company
3.Stakeholders of BHP Billiton
4.Sustainability Development Goals of BHP
5.Social and Environmental Issues faced by BHP as per the GRI Index
6.Swot Analysis Table and Tows Matrix
7.Bad Publicity dealt by BHP
8.Corporate Governance of BHP
9.Recommendations
10.References

Abstract
Sustainability is a concept that has been introduced to our society, keeping the climatic hazards and
environmental disorders in mind. Nature has always been man’s best friend. From the start till date,
it has brilliantly served every purpose of mankind in uncountable ways. The devotion of nature
towards nurturing mankind is beyond question; however, the act of friendship is cherished only
when the devotion towards each other is mutual. Over the years, we have seen and analysed the
climatic scenario to change, and the changes have proved to be precarious for the nature that
beholds mankind, and every form of life. The ground of this change is simple but deadly. It is the
overexploitation of nature and natural resources that have caused the catastrophe. Emission of
hydrocarbons, burning fuel, deforestation and urbanisation have led to massive destruction of
natural harmony. Toxic emissions from factories have resulted in the depletion of the Ozone layer
that used to protect the world from the detrimental UV rays thereby causing worldly hazards like
global warming. Mankind has chosen to stay inert regarding the issues for a prolonged period,
however, now is the do or die situation for all. The ideology of working together with nature and
natural resources have been introduced such that organisations can check with the possible
outcomes that can endanger the earth or the employees working for them. The random scarcity of
natural resources has forced business organisations to include sustainable development in their
scope of work. It is the duty of every organisation across the world to preserve the nature and its
resources. It has also been made a mandate to fortify the workers who are consciously devoting their
lives to maximise the profit margin of a respective organisation. Organisations across the globe have
adopted certain work measures that satisfies the need of the hour. There are innumerable policies
that have been decided upon and implemented to carry out such measures without much hesitation.
Today, most of the companies hire officials, who solely focuses on the sustainable growth and
development. The policies to be adopted depends a lot on the kind of work the organisation is
involved in. The work and procedure may be different but one thing that stays in common
throughout is the objective to nurture the environment as far as sustainability is concerned. A
portion of budgetary investment is compulsorily devoted for the implementation of the same.
Sustainability reporting has been standardised through the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), that
helps the organisations to stay updated regarding the kind of hazards taking place around them and
to analyse the kind work that has been done by those organisations in return. Each company has a
GRI content index that reflects the transparency of work done by the companies with respect to
sustainable reporting. The concept of GRI is now spread all over the world and is practiced in more
than 100 countries. Many organisations and companies in Australia have adopted the same and have
been working for a better contribution towards nature and environment. The work that is done is
reported through the GRI content index which is analysed to gather information regarding the
success rate for implementation of sustainability and is used to recommend ways for consistent
improvement.

Introduction of BHP as a Company

BHP Billiton is a company that was formed back in the year 2001. This is one of the largest companies
for natural resources in the international market. The company was formed when 2 major companies
BHP Ltd and Billiton PLC united in 2001. The organisation has turned out to be one of the major
mining companies across the planet and has got millions of recognitions in the process. The company
takes pride in production and supply of oil, gas, aluminium, copper, silver, steel, and iron. Engineering
and transportation are other services the company takes part in. BHP has been working in the field of
mining since 1835. They have deliberately taken the Australian mining industry to a new height over
the years. It was in 2001, when BHP declared to be united with another British company sharing
similar objectives and that was none other than Billiton PLC. Since then, the merged unit as BHP
Billiton have undergone paramount progress concerning mining and transportation, and engineering.
During the time of the merge itself, BHP Billiton was an example for cosmic diversity concerning
mining and natural resources with their operations running across 20 countries worldwide. BHP
Billiton has got 2 headquarters established in Melbourne, Australia by the name BHP Billiton Limited
and the other in London, United Kingdom by the name BHP Billiton PLC. The company, in the year
2005, declared to take over 90% shares of WMC. This take over was accepted by the month of June
in 2005 and by August 2nd, the same year, they were granted a 100% ownership on the same. This
formed the benchmark of success for the Anglo-Australian mining organisation. This was followed by
a trail of successful deals that earned the prestige of being the market leader in mining fields for the
organisation. In the year 2008, the shares of BHP recorded a premium hike ($48.90) hypothesizing
that Chinalco (a Chinese firm) was considering purchasing a large stake from BHP. BHP, later, indulged
in Nickel projects across western Australia but sold the Ravensthorpe Nickel project because of easy
extraction of Nickel and oversaturation in market centering the same. By the end of January 2010,
BHP purchased Athabasca Potash for US$320. Economists across the world speculated BHP to be the
supplier of world’s 15% potash by 2020 as a result of the deal. In August 2016, BHP Billiton recorded
the company’s worst annual loss of $6.4 billion. By the end of the same year, the company decided to
take part in petroleum industry and made new investments for the same. In May 2017, BHP Billiton
started to rebrand itself as BHP as the company faced major losses through the deals made earlier in
2016. They attempted to alter their slogan to “Think Big” and started advertising on a fresh note in
Australia and then in the rest of the world. BHP has been working on and off as one of the leading
industries for mining, petroleum, and gas across the globe. Thus, it can be easily deduced that the
fuel extraction process of the company has been responsible for being one of the 90 companies
responsible for toxic emissions into the atmosphere over the years.

Stakeholders of BHP Billiton

The primary concern of BHP has always been the satisfaction of the stakeholders of the company.
The company vows to maintain transparency with the stakeholders regarding the deals, projects, and
actions of the company. The company solely believes in engaging with and listening to the
stakeholders. The Annual General Meetings are the medium for BHP to communicate with the
stakeholders on a global level. Each asset needs to plan and document the activities of the
stakeholders through newsletters, reports etc on a regional level for communicating with the
stakeholders. Tailored internal channels are used to engage with the key stakeholders of BHP. The key
stakeholders of BHP include the following:
1.The Forum on Corporate responsibility for BHP

2.The partners in business for BHP

3.The Community based organisations

4.The contractors and employees

5.Labour unions

6.Customers and Suppliers

7.NGOs

8.The indigenous and local community

9.The investment organisations and shareholders

10.Media

11.Governments and regulators

12.Industry associations and peers

Sustainability Goals of BHP

BHP as an organisation have been effectively participating in assuring sustainability and vows to
maintain a global impact. The sustainability report of the company is in alignment with the Global
reporting standards for the same. The report includes the assets of BHP those are wholly owned or
owned in a joint venture. The concept of sustainability for BHP puts health and safety in the
frontlines. The company solely devotes in taking environmental responsibilities and supporting their
communities. The Sustainability goals are achieved by BHP through the following:

a) The direct business activities and policies of BHP: The products those are produced in BHP
and the ways followed through the procedure of production.
b) The supply chain of BHP and the employment opportunities they create either directly or
indirectly.
c) The social investments of BHP made voluntarily.

BHP’s approach towards Social Investment:

BHP plants the seed of sustainability through all their direct and indirect actions. Every step taken by
the organisation has a part to play in establishing environmental and social harmony. The
organisation has predominantly spread their concept of sustainability through Social investments by
spending 1 % of their pre-tax profit to finance the programs that indulge in promoting the life-quality
of people around the globe. The Social Investment Framework for BHP is in accordance with the
sustainable goals for the United Nations and deals in multifarious aspects centering the capability of
humans, governance, society, and environment. The Social Investment for BHP accounted to
US$77.05 million in the year 2018 that was partly utilised for donations and direct development
projects.

The Social Investment framework for BHP includes the following:

a) Governance: BHP takes distinctive part in enhancing the ways of governance thereby
shrinking the rate of corruption, establishing transparency, and underpinning the institutions.
b) Capability of humans and Social inclusion from BHP: They focus tediously on improving the
health and safety for the people, enhance educational opportunities for commoners and
provide vocational training thereby upgrading the lifestyle for them as well.
c) Environmental betterment: BHP has strict objectives as far as the betterment of the
environment is concern ed. The company indulges in long term plans for curtailing
environmental challenges and reducing the toxic effects like climate change. Conservation of
biodiversity and supervision of water bodies also forms a part of their environmental
concerns.

The BHP Billiton Foundation: This foundation has been developed by BHP for charitable purposes
and is totally funded by the same. The foundation also works in partnership with the aim to
establish better standards for sustainable development. The foundation focuses on various
sections concerning sustainability that includes equity in education, and the development
priorities in countries like Australia, Chile, Canada, and the United States.

Sustainability Governance of BHP: BHP’s Committee for Sustainability takes part in promotion of
HSEC (health, safety, environment, and community). The Audit Committee of BHP checks on the
Group’s working systems and the Risk Committee checks on the risk analysis and management.

BHP does a materialistic assessment on sustainability: This assessment is conducted by BHP to

check with the present issues centering sustainability, and the check also helps the company to
identify the issues those may emerge in near future. This procedure helps them to analyse any
emerging challenge centering sustainability and assists them in maintaining the standards as per
the principles of GRI.

The Material issues of BHP that gets assessed are:

a) Maintaining governance over the joint ventures those are not operated, stewardship of
product.
b) Compliance with anti-corruption issues
c) The composition and engagement of workforce; development of fresh talents.
d) The safety of contractors and employees
e) Matters relating to Human Rights
f) The mental health of the workforce; Issues related to health in local communities.
g) Reduction in emission of greenhouse gases; the direct climate change impacts.
h) Conservation of biodiversity; preservation of water; tailings and dam facilities; waste
management.

The Social and Environmental Issues disclosed by BHP:

a) Air: BHP confirmed that their products and operations raise potential threat to the
environment through the emission of greenhouse gases. BHP consistently discuss ways to
curtail the emission of greenhouse gases and try to implement innovative ideas to work on
the same. The example of the Pakistan Petroleum facility established by BHP can be
considered regarding this matter. The compression equipment used in the facility has been
optimized to lessen the discharge pressure which in turn reduces the consumption of fuel
during the process thereby emitting lower amounts of greenhouse gases into the air.
b) Waste: The drilling wastes generated due to the production process is an environmental
issue faced by BHP. This issue is significantly handled by BHP as the company claims as the
waste management procedure is followed by storage of the waste materials, transportation
of the same, waste disposal and monitoring. This entire methodology consists of a worker
protection plan to reduce the waste exposure to the workforce of BHP.
c) Water: Polluting water bodies and wastage of water during production process has been
significant and poses great threat to the nature. BHP has taken initiatives to cease pollution
and overuse of water during the process of production as per the GRI index report. They
have consistently participated in monitoring water leakages and studying water footprint.
The company claims to have planned quantitative water balance models to reduce the
wastage of water in the operational sites.
d) Energy: BHP has disclosed the use of enormous energy at the operational sites to run the
process and procedures. As per the GRI index, BHP has claimed that they are in constant
search of advanced technology and the research team is working on the same throughout to
reduce the amount of energy consumed in the process of production.

Speaking on competitors of BHP in the market for adopting sustainable policies is Rio Tinto. Here,
we have further discussed the greenwashing of both the companies: BHP and Rio Tinto

BHP, according to the research, is a company who have not been much serious related to
environmental concerns as when compared to Rio Tinto. The statements in the GRI report
centering financial risks related to the regulation for the greenhouse gas emissions point that
BHP has always focussed on stakeholders and investors than environmental issues or society.
According to George’s River, BHP commits towards environmental betterment to an extent where
they are required to do so. BHP, when possessed the license to dump waste in water bodies, did
dump the waste into the water bodies on a regular basis even if it caused extreme water
pollution. Rio Tinto, on the other hand, has proved to be environmentally conscious right from
the start. Rio Tinto have always focussed on importance of stakeholders, financial threats, and
environmental issues on an equal note as per the GRI index. Rio Tinto has also been awarded in
the year 2014 for their work on environmental sustainability and thereby started projects as
engine idle program.

Here is the GRI report for Rio Tinto shown as an example:

The SWOT analysis for BHP Billiton:

The TOWS Matrix for BHP Billiton:

The company BHP Billiton has got certain positive attributes towards business approach followed by
certain negative attributes as well. As per the SWOT Analysis and TOWS Matrix Table we can see that
the company has been creating opportunities to rise up as a sustainable and environmentally
conscious organisation. The strategies adopted by the organisation that advances the corporation to
a sustainable competitive advantage are:

a) Ensuring zero work related fatalities.

b) Improving the Total Recordable Injury Frequency (TRIF) per million hours worked.
c) Reduction to the number of workers exposed to DPM, Silica and Coal mine dust by 50%.
d) Social investment of 1% of the pre-taxed profit for contributing in improving the life,
educational facilities and work force development.
e) Control Greenhouse gas emissions by using low level discharge pressure during the
production process thereby resulting in less fuel burns during the process.
f) Reducing fresh- water withdrawal by 15% and monitoring water leakages.
g) Improving the marine and terrestrial biodiversity.

BAD PUBLICITY For BHP:

BHP Billiton has been in the industry of mining in Australia since a long period. During this period the
company utilised numerous operational sites for the production process of Coal, Iron, steel,
aluminium and much more. The company also takes interest in production of petroleum and gas on a
large scale. The process of production uses up a number of resources including land area, water,
energy and much more. The production process at BHP Billiton involves generation of waste on an
extensive scale. Initially, the company had obtained license for dumping the waste materials on the
river. According to George’s River, BHP Billiton, unless required to do so, used to dump all the
generated waste into the water bodies thereby causing havoc to the same without any hesitation. As
per the ethical theory of sustainability, any business organisation, in the process of obtaining the goal
of profit maximisation must also keep the conservation of nature and natural resources in mind.
Presently, BHP Billiton has undertaken measures and long term planning for reducing the use of
natural resources, biodiversity and conservation of nature. The records show that the story was not
the same with them as far as the initial phases are concerned. This has earned a negative publicity on
behalf of the brand name as BHP Billiton has taken no steps to reduce the pollution of the water
bodies.

BHP has also dealt with the issue of Fundao dam failure in the year 2015. BHP has been working on
this project as a partner in Brazil. The Fundao dam incident resulted in tremendous release of water
and mud like wastes that engulfed the life of 19 people from the workforce of BHP. The states of
Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo were also impacted due to the water and mud release. Many were
injured due to the incident. The environment of the Rio Dice basin was also impacted due to the
same.

The Corporate Governance for BHP:

The Corporate governance of BHP assists in consistent monitoring of certain number of
responsibilities across the organisation in an optimum manner. The safety portfolio, the governance
of capital allocation, funding, social values and other significant matters are under the direct control
of the corporate governance at BHP Billiton. The corporate governance include the role of the board
members, that of the shareholders, investors and results in building strategic decisions for better
understanding and execution the of the business procedure as a whole. It provides a conduit to
enable the Board and its Committees to be up to date with investor expectations and to continuously
improve the governance processes of BHP. Multiple forms of engagement with investors throughout
the year on a wide range of topics. For example, responded to enquiries on topics including diversity
and inclusion, cultural heritage, tailings dams, Samarco, non-operated joint ventures, industry
associations, climate risk, biodiversity, water stewardship, COVID-19, workforce mental health and
thermal coal.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
BHP Billiton has been a leading supplier of metals, coal, and petroleum gas since quite some time
now. They have introduced ways to reduce the toxic emissions through the production process and
has also taken steps to work as per the standards of sustainability. However, when it comes in
comparison to its competitors like Rio Tinto in the market, BHP still needs to go a long way as far as
environmental consciousness is concerned. BHP has proved to be extremely effective in managing
the stakeholders but at the same time the company must undertake actions on a serious note to
reduce issues as per the disclosure. The company must make more financial and intellectual
investments to manage water wastage, emission of greenhouse gases and, also for waste
management. The company must actively participate in making all the operational sites free of
potential threats to the environment. The company must pre-analyse the consequences before
entering a project that might mark a stain on the brand name like the Fundao dam failure. The
company must focus on making plans in establishing a secured ambience for the workforce and
reduce fatality as well as injury frequencies. The funds raised by the company for the social progress
must be used wisely for the betterment of people thereby creating more work opportunities. BHP
must analyse the security threats posed on the workers for exposure to toxic emissions and must
plan to control the same.
References:

1.BHP Billiton Exploration and Development Report for the ...

https://www.bhp.com › bhp › bhpbedreport24jan06

2.References | Bioregional Assessments

https://www.bioregionalassessments.gov.au › references-2

3.BHP Billiton Annual Report 2009 - Annual Reports

https://www.annualreports.com › NYSE_BHP_2009

4.BHP Billiton Iron Ore, Mt Whaleback Mine | Australia | Sixense

https://www.sixense-group.com › references › bhp-billit...
5.BHP Billiton to proceed with Rapid Growth Project ...
https://www.sciencedirect.com › science › article › abs ›