Our purpose is to provide the essential materials the world needs in a sustainable way, contributing to the mutual prosperity of communities while minimizing our impact on the environment and protecting cultural heritage.

Aluminum for energy and fuel-efficient cars. Copper for renewables that power your home. Iron ore for the steel in buildings and electricity infrastructure. Lithium for electric vehicles and battery storage.

We’ve put the transition to a low-carbon economy at the core of our business strategy — accelerating the decarbonization of our assets, delivering the metals and critical minerals for energy transitions, and producing products and technologies that help our customers decarbonize, developing new projects safely and efficiently. 

By living by our values of care, courage and curiosity, we will harness the skills, ingenuity and determination of our people. Through care we will create a safe environment for everyone and build mutual understanding, respect and prosperity in host communities. With courage, we will do what is right and boldly try new things, helping us be the best we can be. Curiosity will drive us to continuously learn and improve and develop new solutions that push us – and the world – forward.

Rio Tinto is a mining and metals company operating in 35 countries around the world. The company’s Canadian assets that currently report on TSM performance include the Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC), the Diavik Diamond Mine, and Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT) mine in Havre-Saint-Pierre, Québec.

Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC)

The Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) is the leading Canadian producer of high-grade, low impurity iron ore pellets and concentrate. IOC is a joint venture between Rio Tinto, Mitsubishi and the Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Income Corporation.

Located in northeast Canada, IOC is a fully integrated business with a mine and a processing plant in Labrador City, a port and a stockpile in Sept-Îles, and a 418-kilometre railway that joins these two parts of the operation. Rio Tinto employs nearly 20% of the population in Labrador City, helping to support the local economy.

In 2020, IOC introduced mandatory Indigenous cultural awareness training for all its employees. The purpose of the training is to help employees to gain an understanding of the history of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, develop sensitivity to cultural differences and build the knowledge and skills required for effective communication and positive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. All employees at IOC have completed the training.

In Quebec, Iron Ore Company of Canada and the Innu communities of Uashat mak Mani-utenam and Matimekush-Lac John signed a Reconciliation and Collaboration Agreement that marks the beginning of a new relationship based on open communication, listening and trust.

Diavik Diamond Mine

The Diavik Diamond Mine is known for its beautiful and sought-after white diamonds. Situated 200km south of the Arctic Circle, Diavik is committed to protecting the biodiversity of this delicate ecosystem. The site is home to an award-winning wind farm that has offset over 28 million litres of diesel since its inception – prioritizing environmental sustainability in the way that we mine.

Diavik comprises four diamond-bearing pipes that are mined using a combination of open pit and underground mining. In November 2021, Rio Tinto became the sole owner of Diavik Diamond Mine.

The design, construction and operation of Diavik is a story of success on a grand scale, in part because it is in one of the most challenging environments in the world: the sub-arctic tundra, one of the world’s pristine environments with one of the most delicate ecosystems. Rio Tinto is committed to protecting the biodiversity of this unique landscape.

Through innovation, world-class engineering technologies and partnering with Indigenous people, Rio Tinto is able to mine some of the world’s most ethical diamonds with a minimal impact on the local land, water, and wildlife.

Havre-Saint-Pierre

Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT), which is wholly owned by Rio Tinto, operates a world-class ilmenite deposit at Lac Tio near Havre-Saint-Pierre, Quebec. RTFT has been processing ore from northern Quebec for more than 70 years. It is a world leading producer of high-grade titanium dioxide feedstock, a product commonly used as a pigment to whiten a range of products such as paint, textiles and paper. It also produces iron and steel used in specialized applications such as the automotive industry and wind turbines.

RTFT is one of the 50 most active companies in Quebec in research and development, and its Critical Minerals and Technology Centre is among the ten largest in the Canadian metallurgical industry.

RTFT’s community relations policy is founded on the principles of listening to and respecting the local population. RTFT supports initiatives that strengthen the vitality of the local communities, focus on regional development and improve residents’ quality of life. RTFT is also committed to long-term partnerships in health, education, culture, the environment and community activities.

In November 2019, the Innu community of Ekuanitshit and RTFT signed a historic partnership agreement named “Uauitshitun”, which means “mutual support” in the Innu language. Under the agreement, Rio Tinto will support initiatives in four main areas: education and jobs, economic development, the environment and Innu culture.

Communities

We strive to leave a positive mark in the communities where we operate, respecting local culture and contributing to the long-term prosperity of the people who host us and the owners on whose land we work. By upholding the highest standards of transparency and integrity in how we do business, and in listening to civil society, we will build and maintain the trust of our many stakeholders.

We are building cultural capability and competency across the Group to ensure that we fully understand, value and partner with our host communities. We are also stepping up our external engagements to develop deeper connections with all stakeholders and build mutually beneficial partnerships. We understand our social license to operate is essential and that we will be judged by all our stakeholders. We know we need to be more responsive and humbler and will strive to build meaningful relationships with our stakeholders by listening, learning and respecting diverse perspectives.

 Safety and Health

Safety is at the core of how we operate each and every day. Nothing matters more than the safety and wellbeing of our employees and contractors, and we are pleased that we have experienced our third consecutive year with no fatalities at our managed operations. This reflects the hard work and dedication of our employees and contractors worldwide. Sadly, however, people are still getting injured at work, so we must remain vigilant and focused.

As COVID-19 continues to be prevalent in our everyday lives, our teams across all sites are taking proactive steps to ensure the health and safety of our employees and host communities. We maintain a range of COVID-19 specific measures to align with directives from governments and health authorities in the respective jurisdictions. Our strict COVID-19 protocols allow us to continue to operate while simultaneously reducing the risk of transmission for our employees, contractors, and communities. In 2021, we supported government vaccination campaigns. For example, in Canada, we partnered with governments, communities and other local businesses to deploy vaccination clinics at our facilities and trained staff to administer doses to employees and members of the communities.

In March 2021, we launched our Everyday Respect task force to better understand, prevent and respond to harmful behaviors in the workplace, specifically bullying, sexual harassment, racism and other forms of discrimination. To support the work of the task force, we engaged Elizabeth Broderick & Co. to conduct an independent review and to make recommendations to strengthen our culture and ensure sustained change. The report was published on 1 February 2022 and the findings shared are upsetting and confronting. We are committed to making the changes required to create a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace for our people.

Our focus on reducing injuries at the sites results from our continued implementation of best practice standards in health and safety and completing significant projects to remove our people from hazard exposure. We have thoroughly reviewed our risks across the assets and improved controls to mitigate and manage them. We strongly believe our leaders have a key role in our health and safety performance, and we were able to continue our coaching approach across all our sites despite COVID-19 restrictions. We have also made significant progress with our contractors’ safety performance.

In 2022, we will continue to grow our safety culture in line with our safety maturity model (SMM) by learning from the best sites within the business. To support our ambition of becoming the best operator, we will also rollout the Rio Tinto Safe Production System (RTSPS), which leverages all of our people, empowering them to develop and share sustainable, best practice solutions to define the way we work safely and optimally at Rio Tinto.

Tailings Management
Responsibly managing waste from mining operations is essential, as is being transparent with our stakeholders about our tailings storage facilities and how we manage them. We engage with stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of our tailings storage facilities (TSF), from design to closure.

We work through technical committees and joint venture relationships to support leading practice in tailings management. Our full tailings disclosure is available on our website and we periodically update the list of TSFs to reflect operational and ownership changes, including changes due to the transition of closure or remediation obligations for legacy assets and reclassification of facilities. In May 2021, we updated previously disclosed information on each of our global TSFs.

All facilities were assigned a consequence classification in accordance with the regulatory or industry body that oversees tailings in each region or jurisdiction. Additional technical data from updated downstream impact assessments, required under the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM) and Rio Tinto’s internal Standard for tailings and water storage facilities, resulted in a modification to hazard classifications of some facilities.

Our facilities are regulated, permitted and have been managed for many years to comply with local laws, regulations, permits, licenses and other requirements. Tailings management has been included in the Group risk register since 2010, and our Group safety standard for tailings and water storage facilities has been in place since 2015. Our internal assurance processes verify that our managed TSFs operate in accordance with this standard, which we updated in 2020. Our operational TSFs have emergency response plans – tested through training exercises in collaboration with stakeholders such as local emergency services – and follow strict business resilience and communications protocols.

Since the launch of GISTM in August 2020, we have continued work on our implementation plan. We completed a gap analysis against our internal tailings management, environment, and communities and social performance standards and developed improvement plans to close identified gaps. While COVID-19 pandemic restrictions delayed a few items, we plan to complete all outstanding actions as quickly as possible, while adhering to restrictions in each jurisdiction.

We played an active role in the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) tailings working group in 2021, which focused on the development of the GISTM conformance protocol as well as a tailings good practice guide designed to help support industry-wide adoption.

In 2021, we also:

• Appointed Accountable Executives for tailings and established the Tailings Management Committee, which provides governance of tailings management practices across the Group to ensure we meet the GISTM and the relevant Rio Tinto Standard requirements.
• Updated our tailings disclosure information and released our updated D5 Standard for the management of tailings and water storage facilities on our website in May 2021.
• Published our Tailings Policy on our website in August 2021.
• Published our Group-wide controls for tailings management in our centralized risk management system so that no matter where in the world our people are, controls relating to tailings can be consistently applied and verified.

Biodiversity Conservation Management
The associated impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss pose significant risks to people and the environment on which we all rely. We recognize our responsibility to effectively mitigate the impact of our operations on nature – and we are mindful of our own dependence on healthy ecosystems to run a successful business.

Healthy natural environments with intact ecosystems are key to climate resilience. They also provide important services to the communities where we operate and our business. We are committed to protecting biodiversity with the ambition of achieving no net loss. This means striking a balance between negative impacts on biodiversity and positive outcomes achieved through mitigation.

Energy Use and GHG Emission Management
The minerals we produce are essential to a low-carbon future. Our premium iron ore pellets and high-grade concentrate from the Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) enable our customers to operate more productively, reduce emissions and produce higher-quality steel for the modern world.

Our assets support our pathway to zero emissions through several initiatives. For example:

• At the IOC operations in Canada, we are working on developing low-emissions process heat technology, including the trialing of plasma torches.
• Our Diavik Diamond Mine reduced diesel consumption by approximately 4.5 million liters in 2021 alone through their award-winning wind farm. This amount accounts for about 10% of Diavik’s annual diesel consumption.

 In 2021, we have accelerated our target of a 15% reduction in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions from 2030 to 2025 and established a challenging new target to achieve a 50% reduction by 2030. Each asset group is working on the emission reduction pathways and advance projects

Water Stewardship

In 2021, we improved our ability to manage environmental impacts consistently across the assets. We increased our internal technical expertise and capability by recruiting subject matter experts in a number of disciplines to support practitioners at the asset level. We also worked on our data collection and monitoring processes to improve data access and analysis to allow better data-driven decision-making and management practices, more transparency and improved environmental outcomes.

We carefully manage our use and reuse of water and consider the potential long-term impacts on water sources. This complexity means we are developing a catchment-level approach to water management and manage our impacts, risks and potential solutions within our operations with the understanding that we share water with surrounding communities and nature. We understand this responsibility extends beyond the life of our operations. We aim to avoid permanent impacts to water resources by carefully managing the quality and quantity of the water we use and return to the environment.

Crisis Management and Communications Planning

Our business resilience and recovery program define the process on how we initiate, analyze, plan, train, improve and respond to major events. Our response complies with the Business Resilience and Recovery Programme Group procedure which defines the minimum performance requirements to protect the People, Environment, Asset and Reputation. The assets Emergency response team are highly trained, have the right equipment, and perform an annual exercise to ensure we remain effective and agile to deploy to any emergencies.