An Analysis into Rio Tinto’s Social performance regarding the environment
Introduction-
Rio Tinto is one of the largest mining and metals company in the world which was established in 1873 for the purpose of mining copper from the Spanish river called Rio Tinto which translates to red river. This project became the largest producer of Copper in the world from 1877 to 1891 (Rio Tinto 2018). The British-Australian Multinational has been running for 145 years and boasts mining projects in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mongolia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Namibia. Rio Tinto mines and processes many metals and minerals which include Aluminium, Iron ore, Copper, diamonds, uranium, coal and industrial minerals like lithium-borate and titanium (Rio Tinto 2018). The main focus of the company is the mineral discovery, mineral extraction and then mineral processing and sells these products (Rio Tinto 2018).
As the case is with Mining Companies and their business, with the extraction and processing of minerals there is typically environmental damage with pollution such as Carbon Dioxide emissions, radioactive waste, water pollution and contamination of agricultural land. Rio Tinto attempts to limit environmental damage through the company’s corporate social responsibility(CSR). CSR is described by the Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility as “Social responsibility is the responsibility of an organisation for the impacts of its decisions and
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