For information on the role of the BHP Board in overseeing our approach to and delivery on sustainability refer to the Sustainability approach webpage. 

Our operated assets and functions must meet the Global Standards (where applicable) and assess and implement further controls in accordance with their local risk profiles, standards and regulatory requirements.  

The Safety Global Standard requires the implementation of controls to manage identified risks using the hierarchy of control (elimination, substitution, separation, engineering, administrative, personal protective equipment) in:  

• design and construction of new operated assets, facilities and equipment  
• changes to existing operated assets, facilities and equipment  
• design, planning, scheduling and execution of work  

Fatality Elimination Program  

It is paramount that we continue to learn, improve and focus on opportunities to verify and strengthen our critical risk control framework to more effectively manage and prevent fatality risks.

 

We developed and introduced the Fatality Elimination Program (FEL) program in 2020. The FEL program requires our assets to implement fatal risk controls across their respective material safety risk profiles. The FEL program remains a high priority across BHP, with an intended completion of asset FEL control implementation plans in FY2025. Asset implementation plan progress against the FEL program is measured and tracked by the Executive Leadership Team and BHP scorecard to ensure visibility at the highest level. Post FY2025, ongoing asset control implementation and improvements will be managed via the existing risk evaluation process.

 

We will continue to evolve our approach to safety risk management and our understanding of what conditions and factors influence the cause of incidents and the verification and validation of fatal risk controls. 

 

In FY2024:

• On average, assets achieved over 90 per cent compliance for FEL program controls implemented according to the plan for this financial year. 
• We continued implementation of the five-year fatality elimination roadmap, including the recommended sequencing of strengthened controls based on effort, cost and near-miss reduction impact.
• We continued to undertake data analysis and insights into our high-potential near-miss and actual events, moving from three monthly to six monthly reviews, to identify more meaningful themes over a longer sampling period. This included a continued focus on the relevant risks, controls and conditions that may increase the likelihood of incidents.
• We identified ongoing FEL program fatal risk control verification and improvement opportunities via regional focused assurance activities. 
• We continued to review the Fatal Risk Control Management Framework to improve how we manage single fatality occupational safety risk, with vehicle and mobile equipment remaining our highest risk. This ongoing work involves deepening our organisational understanding of risk and what causes incidents, improved performance standards and the quality of our fatal risk control verification and assurance programs.

Field leadership  

Our global Field Leadership Program drives a common approach to improving health, safety, and environment (HSE) performance with a focus on preventing fatalities and developing a positive ‘safe to speak up’ culture of care – a key attribute of progressive, high reliability organisations and the world’s best HSE performers. 

 

The Field Leadership Program was deployed with a common global approach in FY2019. 

 

More than 8 million field leadership activities involving our workforce have been completed since FY2019, which demonstrates that the program is being embedded into our daily leadership routines. We monitor field leadership participation and coaching at our operated assets to support the continual improvement and embedment of the program. 

 

Leaders spending time in the field helps maintain safe operations. Our global Field Leadership Program fosters a culture of care, reinforces standards and encourages the workforce to provide feedback to their leaders about safety issues and concerns, including improvements to strengthen our control framework and safe work innovation so we learn and improve together.   

 

In FY2024 we continued to: 

• improve the quality of field leadership activities by increasing training and coaching, and delivering field leadership engagements across all levels of the organisation 
• conduct field leadership activities to support the verification of risks that have the potential to result in injuries or illnesses and fatalities across our operated assets  
• embed the global field leadership procedure, which is designed to increase the effectiveness of field leadership activities across the business   

Safety event investigations 

Our mandatory minimum performance requirements for health, safety, environment and community (HSEC) reporting requires HSEC events to be reported and recorded in our Event Management System. An event is defined as any occurrence that has resulted in (or has the potential to result in) adverse impacts to people, the environment or the local community. Events are classified on the potential and actual consequence outcomes. 

 

We promote the reporting of events so we can learn and improve. Our Code of Conduct and channels to raise misconduct concerns are designed to support and encourage event reporting (including reporting events related to sexual harassment, racism, bullying and discrimination) and to protect our workers against any potential reprisals from doing so. Importantly, our leaders are encouraged to build trust and role model behaviours that make it feel safe to speak up and report incidents, unsafe conditions and improvement suggestions.

 

Event and investigation processes are governed through our mandatory minimum performance requirements for event and investigation management (in addition to any local regulatory requirements). As part of this process, we focus on the context in which an event happened, seeking to understand how work is done. We examine organisational factors to consider how they contributed and identify any systemic-level opportunities for improvement. Our key findings and actions focus on how we can strengthen controls to build capacity and resilience within work. 
  
Near-miss and injury events with fatality potential have robust investigation requirements and methodology and are supported by trained leaders and facilitators. Senior leaders play an instrumental role in driving investigations, positively influencing our ability to learn and improve and share lessons more broadly across our organisation. This approach is designed to optimise learning potential and focus on the higher end of the control hierarchy to prevent event reoccurrence and sustain improvements. 

 

Contractor management  

Our commitment to safety includes the many thousands of contractors who represent a large part of our total workforce.

Our approach to contractor management is designed to make it safer and easier for contractors to work with us by enabling an inclusive, respectful and caring workplace culture.  We have an asset-centric contractor management program. Our contract owners work collaboratively with contractors to deliver work safely under the conditions of their contract and in accordance with our requirements defined under the mandatory minimum performance requirements for contractor management.  

Collaboration with our workforce is vital, so we ensure subject matter experts across our operated assets and functions are engaged in the development, implementation, and evaluation of the Global Standards relevant to safety. Formal joint leadership and worker health and safety committees exist within a number of our operated assets and functions. Those committees meet on a regular basis and general responsibilities include identifying health and safety improvements and supporting the implementation of health and safety initiatives. 

In FY2024 we recorded:¹

• one fatal incident involving a vehicle, where a valued colleague undertaking contract work lost their life.
• a 36 per cent decrease in the high-potential injury frequency rate from FY2023. The highest number of events with the potential for one or more fatalities was related to vehicle and mobile equipment incidents. We closely monitor high-potential injury trends and focus on identifying the contributing factors to help inform fatality risk control improvements.  
• a 5 per cent increase in total recordable injury frequency (TRIF) from FY2023. The highest number of recordable injuries related to slips, trips and falls for employees and contractors. The second highest number of injuries for employees related to being hit by a moving object and for contractors related to being caught between object.