Our ambition

Our 2030 social value goal under the Thriving, empowered communities pillar is to partner with communities and stakeholders to co-create and implement plans that deliver jointly defined economic, social and environmental outcomes. To read more about our 2030 social value goals refer to the BHP Annual Report 2023, Operating and Financial Review 6.5 - 2030 goals and on the Social value webpage.

Our approach and position  

We recognise the importance of treating our communities with respect and we aim to build trust through open and honest relationships. This helps us achieve a clear understanding of the context and impacts of our activities and informs how we can make a meaningful and responsible contribution to economic and social development. Our Code of Conduct and BHP’s Our Requirements standards, including Our Requirements for Community, govern our purpose to bring people and resources together to build a better world. We strive to make a positive contribution to communities where we operate and recognise our responsibility to avoid adverse impacts on the health, safety and wellbeing of our local communities, or to minimise or mitigate such adverse impacts where these cannot be avoided. 

Our approach has been developed based on standards from the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), the United Nations (UN) Global Compact and frameworks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards.  

We define communities as persons or groups of people living and/or working in any areas that are economically, socially or environmentally impacted (positively and negatively, directly and indirectly) by our activities. This includes individuals and communities not living directly in a project area but who rely on the area for a particular reason (such as for sustenance or income) or who have a significant connection to the area (such as for cultural, religious, spiritual, historical or family reasons). We recognise our exploration, projects, operated assets, activities, closed and legacy assets (legacy assets refers to those BHP-operated assets, or part thereof, that are in the closure phase) can affect communities, but also create opportunities for BHP to contribute to social value.  
 
The Our Requirements for Community standard requires all our operated assets to implement actions to better understand communities, effectively plan and implement our commitments and evaluate and measure our performance (refer to the diagram above). This standard outlines the mandatory minimum performance requirements for regularly reviewing risks and any actual impacts on potentially affected communities; conducting community and human rights due diligence, including baseline research and impact assessments; undertaking due diligence around engagement activities; and establishing complaints and grievance mechanisms. This work is overseen by the Chief Legal, Governance and External Affairs Officer. The day-to-day implementation of the requirements is managed by Corporate Affairs team members across BHP. The Our Requirements for Community standard applies to all employees and contractors.  

Contributing to an equitable change and transition  

We recognise changes in our business, ranging from the opening to the closing of a mine, can have significant and sometimes disproportionate effects on communities where we operate. We also recognise these same communities are navigating broader shifts in the global economy, such as the energy transition and digital disruption, and the scope and nature of these transitions will continue to evolve.  

We are committed to working with communities we are a part of in periods of change and transition to achieve long-term mutual value. Our approach will be grounded in our existing strategies, policies and frameworks in relation to our people, the environment, communities and other stakeholders and partners. The interconnection of these policies and frameworks1 aims to ensure change and transitions are equitable and deliberately considered across the life cycle of our business and for the communities where we operate.  Our approach to equitable change and transitions will:  

• Recognise our responsibility to our workforce: Where a major change in our business is expected to affect our workforce, we will engage in meaningful dialogue and support those impacted.  
• Create opportunity for meaningful engagement and co-designed processes: We will seek to develop relationships with stakeholders and partners, including government, local businesses, community members, suppliers, Indigenous peoples and workers, that support understanding of the issues and co-creation of solutions. We will communicate transparently on the types of changes the business needs to make and enable active participation of those most impacted.  
• Recognise the impacts associated with gender, land connectedness and social and economic vulnerability: We will not assume all people are affected similarly. We will seek to understand how impacts may be differently experienced, including for Indigenous peoples, and recognise plans and solutions must take into account the particular strengths of each community and tackle the unique impacts they experience.  
• Recognise the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development are inter-related: We will aim to avoid or mitigate adverse environmental impacts of change and transitions, while pursuing opportunities to build climate resilience and environmentally sustainable communities. 

Given change and transitions will involve multiple actors, we will seek to be a catalyst to bring people together and use our relationships to advocate for equitable change and transitions in line with the above principles.  

1 These include our Indigenous Peoples Policy Statement, Social Value Framework, Inclusion and Diversity Statement, Climate Change strategy, approach to the environment, Closure strategy, Human Rights Policy Statement, and approach to community engagement. 

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