Our Social Investment Strategy frames BHP’s approach to voluntary social investment across all levels of the organisation. The strategy guides the Group’s approach to social investment and how we maximise the value of our social investments to strengthen social value. We prioritise working in genuine partnership with others towards shared outcomes.

In particular, our strategy aims to:

• provide a unified and integrated framework to guide all social investment across our operated assets, business and Group functions
• align our social investment with current and emerging issues, trends and priorities of relevance to our business and stakeholders, and where we believe we can make a distinctive contribution and/or demonstrate leadership
• contribute to addressing global sustainable development challenges by aligning our strategy to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) of most relevance to our business and committing to work in partnership with others to achieve shared goals
• enable us to more effectively evaluate, aggregate and demonstrate the cumulative positive impact of our social investment to stakeholders
• strengthen social value through making a positive contribution to the environment and society

Our approach to social investment is underpinned by several core principles: coherent, enduring, value-oriented and informed by social value priorities. These principles are also intended to ensure social investments are designed and delivered in a manner that respects relevant local customs, traditions and priorities.

We recognise our responsibility to make a positive contribution to sustainable development and environmental resilience. Our Social Investment Strategy is underpinned by our Social Investment Framework, which aims to make a meaningful contribution to addressing the sustainable development challenges of most relevance to our business and stakeholders.
 
The framework is aligned to the UN SDGs and focuses on three themes:

• Future of communities – to contribute to the understanding, development and sustainable use of resources to support communities to be more adaptive and resilient and enable them to address the challenges of the future and thrive
• Future of work – to enhance human capability and social inclusion through increasing access to relevant education and vocational training, skills development, and enhanced livelihood opportunities linked to the future of work
• Future of environment – to contribute to enduring environmental and social benefits through biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration, water stewardship and climate change mitigation and adaptation

The Social Investment Framework is delivered using a local, regional, national and global approach, outlined in the figure below.

Monitoring and evaluation are fundamental to our global social investment approach and, to assist in the execution of our approach, we use a suite of metrics designed to enable us to aggregate data aligned to the key focus areas of the Social Investment Framework and consistently assess and quantify the outcomes and impact of our social investment across all levels of investment. Our voluntary social investment in FY2022 totalled US$186.41 million, consisting of:

• US$99.36 million in direct community development and environment projects and donations
• US$14.5 million equity share to non-operated joint venture social investment programs
• US$52.42 million donation to the BHP Foundation¹
• US$1.51 million under the Matched Giving Program
• US$16 million in administrative costs to facilitate direct social investment activities²
• US$2.49 million supported the operations of the BHP Foundation

¹ The BHP Foundation is a charitable organisation established and funded by BHP, which works in partnership with internationally recognised institutions, think tanks and non-government organisations to address some of the most critical sustainable development challenges facing society that are directly relevant to the resources sector.

² The direct costs associated with implementing social investment activities, including labour, travel, research and development, communications and costs to facilitate the operation of the BHP Foundation.