Corporate Social Responsibility: OZ Minerals

Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibility for OZ Minerals.

 

Introduction

The business corporations are nowadays largely emphasizing on improving their social, economic and environmental performance for achieving sustainable growth and development. The businesses in order to achieve sustainable growth are developing their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports that provide information regarding the benefits achieved by all the stakeholders through their measures taken for improving the social, economic and environmental performances. In this context, there has been development of GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) sustainability reporting guidelines to provide assistance to the business corporations worldwide for effective sustainable reporting (Schaltegger, Bennett, and Burritt, 2006). In this context, the present report aims to analyze the extent of two selected business entities complying with the sustainability reporting standards of GRI. The business entities selected for the purpose are OZ Minerals and Caltex and the report is prepared on the perspective of an analyze working in a consulting firm seeking to develop expertise in corporate sustainability.

Analysis of Sustainability Reporting of OZ Minerals and Caltex as per GRI Principles

The GRI reporting framework is developed for providing a generally accepted framework to disclose the information relating to economic, environmental and social performance. The GRI principles contain both specific and general reporting principles regarding the sustainable performance of a firm that needs to be applied by wide range of stakeholders. The GRI guidelines consist of two parts that are, reporting principles and implementation manual (Fisher, 2009).  The compliance of OZ Minerals with the GRI reporting principles can be analyzed as follows:

OZ Minerals

The OZ Minerals is an Australian mining company listed on ASX and mainly involved in operating copper-gold mine. The company as involved in mining operations has a major responsibility of taking all the measures for environment protection. In this context, the GRI 304 standards have addressed the importance of protecting biodiversity for promoting sustainable growth of an entity. As per the standard, a reporting entity should provide information about the measures adopted for protecting the genetic diversity and natural ecosystems (White, 2009). The sustainability report of OZ minerals indicates that it effectively complies with the GRI biodiversity standard as it has disclosed adequate information regarding the land and biodiversity conservation. The company has developed and implemented a biodiversity management plan for indentifying the potential impacts of its mining operations on flora and fauna. The emphasis of the plan is to protect the endangered species and develop the procedures for prohibiting the unauthorized haunting or trapping of native species by its employees (OZ minerals: Annual Report and Sustainability Report, 2016).

The GRI 306 principle has addressed the requirements for an entity to provide the information in relation to treatment of effluents and waste generated (Fisher, 2009). The OZ minerals also complies effectively with this standard as it has disclosed all the necessary information in relation to measures adopted for minimizing waste generation. The company has adopted adequate procedures or re-handing waste, promoting post-mining land use and effective disposal of solid and hazardous waste. It has designed the disposal facilities for managing the waste materials as per the licensing and statuary obligations. The waste rock produced is disposed in rock dumps within the mining areas and tailings are disposed off through the use of special engineered facilities.  In addition to this, the GRI 306 standard directs the business entities to disclose adequate information in relation to occupational health and safety (Laasch and Conaway, 2014).

The OZ Company is strongly committed to integrated highest standards related to promoting the health and wellbeing of the employees and local community. The company has implemented three policies in this regard, that are, health and safety policy, diversity and inclusion policy and ethics and human rights policy. Also, the company has adopted health and wellbeing performance standards and governance systems for monitoring the effectiveness of its occupational health policies. As per the GRI 413 standards, the company has also adopted adequate measures for promoting the development of local communities through its land rehabilitation and closure plan. The mine closure plan aims to achieve the designated land use after post-mining activities. The land disturbance and rehabilitation plans aims to achieve environmental stability in the area degraded through mining activities for promoting the development of local communities residing nearby the area (OZ minerals: Annual Report and Sustainability Report, 2016).

Thus, it can be said that OZ minerals effectively complies with the GRI 101 standard of including the stakeholders in carrying out all its business activities. As per the standard, the company has effectively identified its stakeholders and disclosed adequately the measures taken for creating value for all its stakeholders. The company has clearly explained its strategic mission of creating sustainable value for all its stakeholders underpinned by its there pillars of safety, capital discipline and strong values (OZ minerals: Annual Report and Sustainability Report, 2016). The company has aligned its sustainability context with the annual report in order to improve in its business operations through adequately disclosing the financial and non-financial information to all its stakeholders as per sustainability context of GRI (Laasch and Conaway, 2014).

Caltex

On the other hand, Caltex, an Australian chain of petrol station does not integrate the use of GRI standards for developing its sustainability reports. The company though has disclosed the sustainable measures adopted by it for improving its social, economic and environmental performance. The company takes appropriate measures for protection of environment but has not disclosed the measures taken by it for promoting the development of biodiversity as per the GRI standards (White, 2009). The company though implements various measures such as adopting the use of Australian Packaging Covenant (APC) for designing more sustainable packaging to reduce the waste generation but the information provided is limited and is not per the GRI 306 standard. The company also has provided information in relation to promoting the occupational heath and well being of employees through implementing the risk management framework that monitors the occupational risks faced by the employees (Caltex Australia: Annual Report, 2016).

However, the disclosure provided by the company in relation to occupational safety measures is not as per the GRI 403 standards. The company also supports the development of its local communities through providing them financial assistance and undertaking programs aimed at providing information relating to their various community activities to protect them from any of their hazardous business activities. Thus, it can be stated from overall analysis of disclosure provided by Caltex in relation to its sustainable performance that it does not effectively follow the GRI reporting principles (Caltex Australia: Annual Report, 2016). Also, the company has not aligned its annual report with the sustainability report that will help in developing an insight into the sustainable performance of the company properly (Laasch and Conaway, 2014).

Conclusion

Thus, it can be stated from the overall discussion held in the report that OZ minerals effectively complies with GRI reporting guidelines. However, the Caltex Company needs to develop its sustainability report separately with its annual report for providing detailed information regarding its sustainable performance as per the GRI standards.

References

Caltex Australia. 2016. Annual Report.

Fisher, D. 2009. Corporate Sustainability Planning Assessment Guide: A Comprehensive Organizational Assessment. ASQ Quality Press.

Laasch, O. and Conaway, R. 2014. Principles of Responsible Management: Global Sustainability, Responsibility, and Ethics. Cengage Learning.

OZ minerals. 2016. Annual Report and Sustainability Report.

Schaltegger, S., Bennett, M. and Burritt, R. 2006. Sustainability Accounting and Reporting. Springer Science & Business Media.

White, G.B. 2009. Sustainability Reporting: Managing for Wealth and Corporate Health. Business Expert Press.