Finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs
Our business
We operate in 35 countries where our 57,000 employees are working to find better ways to provide the materials the world needs
Our purpose in action
Continuous improvement and innovation are part of our DNA
Innovation
The need for innovation is greater than ever
We supply the metals and minerals used to help the world grow and decarbonise
Iron Ore
The primary raw material used to make steel, which is strong, long-lasting and cost-efficient
Lithium
The lightest of all metals, it is a key element needed for low-carbon technologies
Copper
Tough but malleable, corrosion-resistant and recyclable, and an excellent conductor of heat and transmitter of electricity
Bringing to market materials critical to urbanisation and the transition to a low-carbon economy
Oyu Tolgoi
One of the most modern, safe and sustainable operations in the world
Rincon Project
A long-life, low-cost and low-carbon lithium source
Simandou Project
The world’s largest untapped high-grade iron ore deposit
Providing materials the world needs in a responsible way
Climate Change
We’re targeting net zero emissions by 2050
Nature solutions
Our nature-based solutions projects complement the work we're doing to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions
Decarbonisation progress update
We have a clear plan on decarbonisation - find out more about our progress in 2024
We aim to deliver superior returns to our shareholders while safeguarding the environment and meeting our obligations to wider society
Acquisition of Arcadium Lithium
Bringing our scale, development capabilities and financial strength to the Arcadium Lithium portfolio
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The 'f' word of innovation
How unlocking innovation requires a change of mindset
Reducing titanium oxide's carbon footprint
Our BlueSmelting technology could drastically reduce carbon emissions during ore processing
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Our commitment to human rights is core to our values. It is fundamentally about treating people with dignity and respect – our employees and contractors, workers in our value chain, communities where we live and work and others affected by our activities and business relationships. We believe respect for human rights starts with our everyday actions.
We take our commitment to human rights seriously and expect all our people to do the same. From the highest level of our organisation, our Board oversees our internal human rights processes, such as human rights risk assessments and employee training.
Living up to that commitment relies on embedding rights-respecting and ethical behaviour throughout our business, from the way we work with local communities to the way we choose our suppliers and beyond. We know that our activities, and those of our business partners, can both promote and negatively impact human rights. We also know that what we do in one location may affect people’s trust in how we will recognise and respect human rights elsewhere. Our approach to human rights is not just a compliance program. It is an expression of our core values of care, courage and curiosity and fundamental to the way we work.
Our human rights program helps us carry out our commitment to respect rights everywhere we operate, across more than 35 countries, involving over 50,000 employees and contractors and more than 20,000 suppliers. Regardless of the operating context, our approach to human rights remains the same. It is aligned with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and other international standards and frameworks. We adopt a Group-wide approach that draws on existing programs and activities, including from Ethics and Compliance, Security, Communities and Social Performance, the Business Conduct Office and others.
The program has 6 key elements:
At Rio Tinto, everyone has a role in respecting human rights.
The Board Sustainability Committee supports and monitors our sustainability framework, including the human rights performance of our business.
Our Executive Committee has cross-functional and multi-product group accountability for managing human rights risks. This includes management of the functions responsible for our overall human rights approach and broader communities and social performance; third-party due diligence, business integrity and external stakeholder engagement; projects; procurement; sales and marketing; and Marine and Logistics, led respectively under the leadership of the Chief Executive Australia, the Chief Legal Officer & External Affairs, the Chief Technical Officer and the Chief Commercial Officer.
Human Rights specialists in our Communities and Social Performance Area of Expertise have day-to-day oversight of our overall human rights approach, including in relation to modern slavery and supporting functions and product groups as they implement our commitments.
Our people must follow our policies, standards and procedures, including our global code of business conduct The Way We Work. Suppliers are also required to follow our policies and standards in some instances, as set out below.
Our Human Rights Policy articulates our human rights commitments and how we implement them based on international human rights standards and frameworks.
Other key Group policies and procedures that manage our human rights approach, and expectations of third parties, are set out below.
An essential part of our human rights framework is assessing the potential risks and actual impacts we could have on people’s rights, in communities, the workplace, and in our value chain.
Our salient human rights issues are those that are most likely to have severe impacts on people through our activities or business relationships. Assessing which issues are most salient is how we prioritise our due diligence activities and guide our external engagement and interaction on human rights.
We regularly review our salient human rights issues at both a Group and operational level. There are a range of ways we do this, including by:
These are regular and ongoing processes that help us identify any changes to the nature of our salient issues over time. Currently, our salient human rights issues across the Rio Tinto Group are:
Examples of rights that could be impacted:
We manage sustainable change for local community members that may be resettled, economically displaced or experience restricted access to land, as a result of our operations. Read more at Communities page.
Consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we acknowledge and respect Indigenous Peoples’ connection to lands and waters and commit to demonstrate progress towards, or achievement of, Free, Prior and Informed Consent of affected Indigenous communities across all phases of the asset lifecycle. Read more on Indigenous Peoples page.
We train public and private security personnel, to raise awareness of our expectations to secure our operations in a way that respects human rights.
We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves.
As stated in our inclusion and diversity policy, we set stretch targets to achieve an inclusive and diverse workplace. With respect to gender diversity, we have established clear targets to improve the number of women in our organisation, at all levels. We have rolled out a global policy for gender-neutral parental leave and revised our policy on inclusion and diversity to reinforce our expectations around behaviours and personal accountability.
The Everyday Respect report highlighted that bullying and harassment are occurring at an alarming rate across our organisation. Learn more about what we are doing about it here at Everyday Respect.
Examples of rights that could be impacted
Communities are the places and the people who make up where we live, work and call home. We work to prevent and minimise impacts – social, environmental and health and safety –by conducting detailed assessments, in consultation with local communities, and by following robust internal standards and practices. In accordance with our communities and social performance standard, we identify and manage social, economic, environmental, cultural and human rights impacts throughout the life cycle of our projects.
Our focus is on eliminating fatalities, preventing catastrophic events and reducing injuries. Learn more about our Safety Maturity Model on Health, safety and wellbeing page.
Responsible tailings management is critical to the safety of our people and communities and to protect the environment. Read more on Tailings management page.
The crimes of modern slavery have the potential to occur in our business and anywhere across our supply chain, in every country where we live and work. You can read more about our approach to Modern Slavery.
The low carbon transition is at the heart of our business strategy, this includes decarbonising our operations and partnering with our customers and suppliers to decarbonise our value chains. Read more on Climate change page.
Prevention and mitigation is a core part of human rights due diligence. It relies on cross-functional collaboration as negative impacts can occur from a range of business activities and processes. Aligned with the UNGPs, we seek to take appropriate action based on our involvement in adverse impacts and our leverage to address them.
We recognise the importance of acting on involvement we might have in human rights harm through our business relationships, including with our suppliers, in line with the UNGPs. Using a risk-based approach through our third party due diligence process, we pre-screen potential business partners and complete desktop human rights reviews. More than 10,000 business partners completed baseline screening in 2023 and 177 were escalated for human rights review.
We expect our suppliers including subcontractors, to adhere to our Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes respecting human rights. In 2023 we reviewed this code to further clarify our expectations and align with best practice. The updated code will be launched in 2024.
Our standard global supply contract and purchase order terms and conditions requires that suppliers take reasonable steps to prevent and address modern slavery in their supply chains, and grants us the right to audit our suppliers for compliance against these requirements. Our Marine chartering contracts also include a modern slavery provision.
As human rights issues are complex, and not always readily apparent, we build our employees’ understanding through general and tailored training. Our training strategy focuses on demystifying, integrating and personalising human rights across the business.
Our in-house human rights team offer specialised training to key functions such as Procurement, Sales and Marketing, Exploration, Security, Marine and Communities and Social Performance to build awareness on our salient human rights issues and how to manage them. This training includes refresher sessions on human rights due diligence, reinforcing our human rights commitments and identifying areas to operationalise human rights.
Examples of human rights training initiatives include:
We have set a target that by 2024, 100 percent of employees in high-risk human rights roles complete human rights training annually and by 2026, 100 percent of employees complete general human rights training annually.
Each International Human Rights Day, we undertake Group-wide awareness raising activities on human rights.
Case study
Our people are the first line of defence in managing modern slavery risks. They need to understand modern slavery red flags and how to report concerns. This is especially true for people more likely to be exposed to modern slavery risks because of their role or location, such as seafarers.
In 2023, we delivered modern slavery, ethics and integrity and Every Respect training to approximately 200 crew members on our owned vessel fleet. This represents approximately 29% of crew.
We will continue to work towards reaching 100% of crew in 2024.
We know we do not always get it right. When we identify negative human rights impacts that we have caused or contributed to, we commit to take action and remedy the impact in a manner consistent with the UNGP's. We may play a role in remediating harm that we are directly linked to through our products, services or operations.
Read more about key remediation processes:
By 2024 all employees in high-risk human rights roles will complete job-specific human rights training.
Our people are the first line of defence in managing human rights risks. They need to understand the red flags and how to report concerns. This is especially the case for people more likely to be exposed to human rights risks, either because of their role or because they are working in a higher risk location.
On track to achieve target by the end of 2024
By 2026 all employees to complete general human rights training.
Respect for human rights is everyone’s responsibility, not just leaders or those in high-risk human rights roles and so it is important that our whole workforce are aware of human rights risks and know how to report concerns.
On track to achieve target by the end of 2026
Our internal and external assurance processes help us to track and review our performance.
Each of our product groups and internal functions conduct an annual self-assessment and certification of social risks including human rights risks. Given the nature of our Commercial team’s work, its certification focuses on managing human rights risks relating to our business partners, with a focus on labour rights risks.
Our Group Internal Audit team also conducts third line assurance on human rights related issues. Most recently our GIA team has audited our:
External assurance: Our human rights performance is also assessed through various external sustainability initiatives including the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, Copper Mark and the International Council on Mining and Metals.
Copper Mark
Our Kennecott and Oyu Tolgoi copper operations have been awarded the Copper Mark, the copper industry’s independently assessed responsible production program.
Aluminium Stewardship Initiative
In 2023, La Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) received its provisional Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) certification, joining other Aluminium assets in Iceland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Towards Sustainable Mining Program
Our 3 Canadian mines – Diavik Diamond Mine, Iron Ore Company of Canada and RTIT Quebec Operations HSP mine are all assured under the Towards Sustainable Mining Program.
Monash Modern Slavery Benchmark
A+
Corporate Human Rights Benchmark 2023
Rio Tinto ranked 7 overall and 5 in the extractives sector out of 110 companies. We ranked 3rd overall for our governance and policy commitments.
Global Child Forum Benchmark 2023
We ranked 5 in our industry (metals and mining), increasing our initial score of 5.6 to 7.8 out of 10. Areas flagged for improvement included impact assessment and public disclosures.
EcoVadis Scorecard 2022
Our score on labor and human rights is currently 50 (out of 100), which aligns with industry performance (typically scoring between 45 to 65). Improvement areas identified include setting quantitative targets and improved reporting on labour and human rights issues. The 2023 scorecard is not yet available.
In 2021 we reviewed, via internal audit, our site-level complaints, disputes and grievance mechanisms, including the extent to which they meet the UNGPs' criteria for effective non-judicial grievance mechanisms.
The reviews found opportunities for improvement, including better governance and increased community engagement and dialogue to help meet the needs of communities, and especially vulnerable groups.
In 2023, in response to the review findings, we updated our internal guidance and provided training to help teams better align with the UNGPs effectiveness criteria. This included clarifying roles and responsibilities, developing clearer processes and improved reporting. Enhancing these critical local processes will help provide communities with more transparent, accessible and legitimate channels to have their complaints heard and resolved, improve the way we work, and ultimately, help contribute to more trusting relationships between our company and the communities where we operate.
We have taken steps to increase our transparency around our human rights performance, reporting annually on our human rights performance through our online Annual Report, Sustainability Fact Book, Modern Slavery Statement and Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights report.
It is important that we collaborate with peers, civil society organisations and others given the systemic nature of human rights issues. We identify and embrace initiatives that work to mitigate the root causes of human rights harm. We advocate on public policy efforts that help businesses respect human rights.
We welcome conversations and partnerships that help us improve. We value diversity of thoughts and ideas, and we know collaboration is crucial for many human rights issues which are systemic.
We are presently active members of:
We know that civil society organisations and other human rights and environmental defenders can be important advocates for change. Human rights defenders are people who, individually or with others, act to promote or protect human rights and protect the environment in a peaceful manner. We respect the human rights of these individuals and groups and recognise the importance of an open civic space. We make it clear that attacks on human rights and environmental defenders will not be accepted, including when we engage with our business partners.
Our statement on the role of civil society organisations outlines our approach to engaging with civil society organisations and other human rights defenders. This includes regular dialogue with civil society organisations on human rights issues.
We have, in collaboration with other groups, developed several public guides on human rights related issues to help further public awareness and the capacity of our own people and business partners.
We continue to evolve our human rights performance to help prevent our involvement in adverse human rights impacts. We regularly review and update internal standards, systems and processes to integrate human rights due diligence and promote more responsible and ethical ways of working.
As part of ongoing assurance of our human rights program, the Group Internal Audit team completed its review of risk assessment and evaluation processes across the Group’s identified salient issues. The review found that while risks impacting human rights are being identified and captured in risk management systems, broader Group-wide understanding of risks and human rights consequences is needed. To help with this, we continue to develop our Group-wide human rights controls, with a focus on modern slavery risk control management.
Read more in Government and oversight section above.
Assets conduct a range of assessments to enable a more complete understanding of their risk context so they can prevent and mitigate human rights risks.
In 2023, Richards Bay Minerals, ISAL, Kennecott, Rincon, Iron Ore Company of Canada and all Pacific region operations undertook risk assessments to review their salient human rights issues. In addition, 13 assets completed human rights and tailings assessments as part of the Global Standard on Tailings Management review.
Our human rights team supported higher risk assets as they worked towards conducting human rights impact assessments, with a focus on QIT Madagascar Minerals, Simandou, Rincon and Oyu Tolgoi. For assets in more complex security contexts that involve private and public security forces, we continued to undertake security and human rights assessments.
Read more in Assessing risks section above.
Our business relationships
We partner with communities, business partners and other stakeholders to advance respect for human rights in line with international standards and our values.
Our joint venture partners
In 2023, we worked with joint venture partners to provide human rights technical support and monitored human rights performance, through Board and Committee roles for non-managed operations. Human rights risk assessments were completed at La Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) and Sohar Aluminium, as part of a broader human rights due diligence program and Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) certification. CBG received its provisional ASI certification in December 2023
Using a risk-based approach through our third party due diligence process, we pre-screen our potential business partners and complete desktop human rights reviews.
More than 10,000 business partners completed baseline screening in 2023 and 177 were escalated for human rights review. We undertook human rights knowledge shares with 18 strategic suppliers.
We expect our suppliers (including subcontractors) to adhere to our Supplier Code of Conduct, which includes respecting human rights. In 2023, we reviewed this code to further clarify our expectations and align with best practice, and plan to launch the updated code in 2024.
In 2023, we focused due diligence efforts on higher risk supplier categories, including logistics and renewables due to operating contexts and potentially higher risk workforces. We started a project to review non-financial, sustainability and human rights risks in core procurement categories to further promote transparency and effective risk management. We expect this work to be completed in 2024.
Read more in Preventing and mitigating impacts section above.
Effective grievance management can enable more trusted relationships. Every asset is required to have a grievance mechanism. In 2023, we updated guidance and provided training to help teams better align practice with the UNGP's effectiveness criteria.
We are committed to providing for, or cooperating in, remediation when we identify we have caused or contributed to, human rights harm. We may also play a role in remediation where we are directly linked to harm through our products, services or operations. Receiving feedback, complaints or grievances from stakeholders is an important part of our ongoing human rights due diligence approach. In 2023 the human rights team provided counsel and support on a range of internal investigations.
In 2023, our human rights team delivered 35 tailored training sessions targeting 11 assets and 12 functional teams globally. We recorded 2,441 completions of our modern slavery online learning module. We will launch further learning initiatives to support our target to train 100% of high-risk human rights roles by the end of 2024. Our human rights training records are available in the 2023 Sustainability Fact Book.
Each international Human Rights Day we undertake Group-wide awareness raising activities on human rights. In 2023 this coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Throughout the campaign, we encouraged people to think about how they could impact human rights at work and in their day-to-day lives. The awareness campaign included developing an online platform of resources about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with materials for distribution at assets and links to relevant external resources.
We also hosted an art competition for employees and their families to encourage human rights conversations to continue at home. We received positive employee feedback on this initiative; people appreciated the opportunity to talk about human rights with their families, friends and colleagues. Some of our teams used the art competition as a team building activity, triggering conversations among peers about how they could impact human rights through their everyday work. We plan to continue and build the awareness campaign in 2024.
We continue to engage with peers, investors, civil society organisations, workers’ organisations and business partners on issues relating to human rights.
In 2023 this focus included multiple industry initiatives including International Council on Mining and Metals Human Rights working group, the Human Rights Resources and Energy Collaborative, and the Mining Association of Canada’s International Social Responsibility Committee. We actively participate in the Voluntary Principles Initiative and United Nations Global Compact networks and attend regional business and human rights forums in Africa, Asia and Europe.
Read more in Collaborating for greater impact section above.
How we process personal data provided or obtained through this website.
With the exception of the use of cookies, Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of our Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
With the exception of the use of cookies (explained below), Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
Part 1 of this Privacy Policy contains the Rio Tinto Data Privacy Standard, which provides an overview of Rio Tinto’s approach to personal data processing. There is additional information in the appendices to the Data Privacy Standard, including information about disclosures, trans-border data transfers, the exercise of data subject rights and how to make complaints or obtain further information relating to Rio Tinto’s processing of your personal data.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us at digital.comms@riotinto.com).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.
As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of this Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
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