Critical Review On Sustainability And Environmental Reporting With Case Studies

Sustainable Mining: The Case of Tailings Storage Facility

The first review will be of the paper by Erica Schoenberger. Environmentally sustainable mining: The case of tailings storage facility. This paper revolves around questioning the methofd of mining and at the same time to figure it out whether the mining activities can be more sustainable to the environment in order to safeguard the livelihood of the local population.

It is very much clear that mining is very disruptive for the environement and also for the people living nearby. Since a huge chunk of earth is moved in order to get the valuable minerals, however, there are of waste that are generated mostly like sulfide minerals , they often get dumoed in the nearby water bodies thereby increasing the acid level of the water, making it toxic for human consumption and for the purpose of irrigation. In this article the author have discussed the way for sustainable mining which is tailing, however it has to be noted that it requires high level of engineering training. The benefit of this technique can be considered since, it will be highly beneficial with the conservation of water. The basic technique that will be considered before considering the type of tailings to be done whether clay or sandy and therefore, the disposal technique requires very close analysis, which is one of the most common part when it comes to the waste water management.  Dams are needed for the wet storage of tailings. This paper has further concluded two most important points and those are the problems that will arise with the storage of the tailings which is pretty challenging one and it involves the political and social problems as well, Secondly this paper pointed out that with the ability of the policy analysts and the social scientists for the sustainable mining related issues will be increased if more studies are done in the field of engineering with related to this. There is a strong need for strong interdisciplinary engagements for the interdisciplinary problems (Gerard, 2019).

This critical review deals with the corporate social and environmental disclosure of the particular company BHP ltd which has been one of the largest organization in Australia from the year 1983 to 1997 in order to find out whether the social and environmental disclosure in the annual reports of the company are in par with the concepts of social contract and the legitimacy theory. This paper has also compared their sustainable annual report with those of the Guthric and Parker. Content analysis has been used in this study in order to understand both the attention of the media and the disclosure of the corporate policies. The success, however, depends on the reliability of the procedures that has been involved. Here the units for the recording has been defined first, secondly the allocated units are to be defined under the specific category.

Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure

Therefore, this study has been classified merely by Hackston and Milne(1996), which have previously been based on the scheme of Ernst & Young, Guthrie and Gray et al 1995. Therefore the content analysis has clearly stated the media articles and the annual reports of the BHP, which has clearly embraced the classification related to the environment, energy, community involvement, human resources and others. It has been noted with respect to the annual reports of the company that it has shown the upward trend in the increase of the social and environmental disclosures that has been seen to be remained ,voluntarily for a long term has seen to be increased over the time. There has been a considerable rise in the attention of the media and the disclosure in the annual reports between the years 1989-1996 and a predominant increase of the disclosure by the year 1996.

The main purpose of this paper by Karen da costa was to find out the various lanes of corporate social responsibility in the times of disasters taking the example of the Samarco chemical sludge disaster which has took place in the year 2015 in Brazil. This paper had tried to find the ways to enhance the accountability by the corporates in times of disaster, which has been focused on one point is to check the mechanism in the international multinational companies. They have checked those mechanism which has been addresses both the environmental issues and the human rights part. The method of this research has been based on the desk research rather than the fieldwork.

The paper has covered the Samarco chemical Sludge which has included a lot of case study of the accountability of businesses related to the disasters. However, it was clear that this has been ome of the biggest disaster that the country have faced so far. It has been concluded that OECD guidelines has offered a great opportunity for putting up the pressure on the government owing to seek the accountability from the companies that has been involved. However, it has been noted that the government has already started taking measures related to that, however, they have further alternatives that they require to explore, thereby they will be further putting pressure over the Australia and the United Kingdom (Mahmud, 2019).

The review of this paper written by kathyayini Kathy rao, carol A. Tilt and laurance H.lester. The main purpose of this study as per the authors were to evaluate the connection between the reporting related to the environmental concern and the related corporate governance characteristics of the company in parts of Australia. It has been seen that this paper has adopted the quantitative analysis approach and has taken into consideration and performed a research over 100 Australian companies that has been listed in the Australian stock exchange in order to get the right insight into the actual data of the environemental report and thereafter these datas has been compared with the different measures of the other companies in the light of the corporate governance (Crane, Matten, & Spence, 2019).

Corporate Social Responsibility and Government Inquiry

Important findings in this analysis both affirm and contradict conventional consensus about Australia’s largest firms’ share in environmental coverage. All 94 of Australia’s top 101 firms surveyed have a degree of environmental coverage, showing Australian businesses add importance to environmental reporting and acknowledging proof that environmental reporting is an environmental repository. In addition, good corporate governance tends to influence the proportion of environmental coverage in Australia’s biggest corporations’ annual reports. All indicators of corporate governance were found to be important in this review, although not all were in the direction expected. Nevertheless, these results suggest that boards of independent as well as female members are likely to be in the positive influence of the reporting over the environement (Paynter, Halabi & Tuck, 2019).

This work includes a study of the submissions on Corporate Social Responsibility to an Australian Government Inquiry 2005/06. The inquiry was set up to examine how corporate social obligations and responsibility should be controlled, or left to market forces to decide. Results indicate that the corporate community is largely in support of an anti-regulation stance whereby businesses should remain agile in deciding their social obligations and relevant accountabilities and ‘enlightened self-interest’ should be maintained as the driving framework for measures in social responsibility. In sharp comparison, in favour of a pro-regulation view, the submissions from social and environmental groups and individuals offered counter-arguments. Ultimately, the government accepted the business community’s ‘open enterprise view’ and opted on the implementation of comprehensive corporate social responsibility laws (Rao et al 2019).

The Following are the criticism with respect to the corporate social responsibility and The lack of clarification of the CSR definition, the psychopathic nature of the corporation, business problems that obstruct the corporation do well by doing well (profit wins over principles), the use of the CSR rhetoric to cover the most vicious corporate practices. People are always after earning profits and therefore it becomes a typical scenario where people might tend to overlook their responsibilities over the social causes (Ozkazanc, 2019). Therefore, there are a need for a legislation and a complete understanding of the social responsibilities by the leaders of the business. This paper has pointed out to the inquiry that was formed for a variety of reasons including the opinion that: corporate social responsibility arose as a key problem for Australia’s corporate sector, with Australia’s ethical norms significantly lagging behind other countries around the world in the execution of institutional and monitoring provisions relevant to social responsibilities. This essay discusses the perspectives of different companies and shareholders on corporate social obligations and how new regulations would further regulate corporate social responsibilities which has beautifully given the insight over the total CSR issues (Asongu, Uduji & Okolo-Obasi,2019).

Environmental Accidents and Corporate Transparency

This paper provides a case study in business conversation with marginalized individuals. In the business literature dialog with disadvantaged external communities is increasingly posed as the key to making corporate social responsibility happen particularly via learning and development. Around the same time, corporate strategic relations encourage civic participation as a central component of corporate social responsibility. An increasing research community explores how unforeseen social and environmental events influence corporate disclosure actions in underdeveloped countries this research examines how environmental accidents in Bangladesh arising from the activities of a Canadian-based global corporation named Niko have an effect on the business’s internal social and environmental transparency. This paper incorporates credibility theory and media agenda setting theory to connect public attention to corporate transparency initiatives. For the study Niko ‘s financial accounts, press releases and a stand-alone environmental survey, as well as media stories on Niko’s blowout events in Bangladesh were reported. Environmental accidents such as fires, chemical spills, carbon. Throughout the literature on environmental and social accounting and transparency, a increasing amount of work indicates that credibility-threatening environmental events impact the extent of environmental disclosures The theoretical viewpoints adopted by these studies to understand correlations between media reporting and corporate social disclosures were the joint consideration of the credibility hypothesis and It was also noted that, as a result of its intention to comply with the regulatory requirements of two major environmental prosecutions, Niko’s annual reports and press releases sufficiently reported its future environmental liabilities. The findings suggest that the annual reports are contained in the absence of information on the environmental impact Niko has on its local community. Based on the results of this article, it can be claim that the absence of any success comment in the annual reports suggests that the organization takes the stance of “looking after its own backyard” (Tilt, 2009) rather than trying to keep the local people responsible who were eventually impacted by Niko’s blowouts in Bangladesh. This study has also provided an understanding regarding the danger of media-induced corporate credibility and how this danger in turn affects the multinational company to implement a disclosure-related policy (Anaf et al 2019).

The Rio Tinto Sustainable Development Report

This report was prepared in compliance with the Sustainability Reporting Criteria (Core Option) of the Global Monitoring Initiative (GRI), the GRI Mining & Metals Sector Supplement and the Sustainable Development System of the International Council for Mining & Metals (ICMM) (Cachat?Rosset, Carillo, & Klarsfeld,  2019).

The Chief executive has put enough stress over having a good partnership and their first priority has been safety which comes first, since they believe that there are nothing more precious than removing all kinds of fatalities from the businesses. Although our protection efficiency in certain places has increased, there is more work to be done. When it comes to security, we are not yet a top-performing company and to become one requires a deliberate change of step. One of our colleagues lost his life at our US smelter at Rio Tinto Kennecott in October 2017. A health-related death of a colleague engaged in exploration activities occurred in the same month. Apart from this they have also advocated over the importance of the mental health and therefore they have understood that mental wellbeing is a social problem which can impact the capacity of a individual to function comfortably and productively. Even if it is not a issue that Rio Tinto can solve alone, they are doing what they can to help the emotional health of the workers. Rio Tinto have services in place around the organization to empower the employees and help them develop resilience (Swanson, 2019).

The other wonderful initiative they have taken to foster their relationship with their clients were to have a believe in the strength of partnership

Rio Tinto has a business cycle that extends through exploration, development, later operations, market value of the minerals and making the maximum use of the life cycle of the assets, however in each step the core values, the vision of sustainable development remains a part in each and every phase.

The riot into group believes in having a forum for the purpose of safety and at the same time they always try to foster the well-being of the businesses. Several progresses that they have made in the year 2017 are as follows:-

• In 2017, the business increased our level of all accidents by five per cent. In addition, Rio Tinto has widened CRM to address the three critical health risks that could lead to deaths in ones business: thermal extremes, hazardous substances and malaria.
• Closure would become a bigger issue for their industry as even more factories near the end of their life In 2017 they reviewed their closure strategy and settled on a way through to simplify and enforce their near. They have set up a dedicated business unit to manage the closing activities over the life of existing assets, and to take care of demolition, abatement and their long-term maintenance responsibilities.
• They have revisited their policy on the climate to ensure it is current and consistent with their intent. Everyone’s aim remains to avoid or mitigate the effect of operating activities on the atmosphere and to ensure that they comply entirely with the applicable regulations.
• They revised existing environmental principles, and they already accepted a new framework for protecting biodiversity and preserving natural resources. Those guidelines set the basic criteria which must be fulfilled by all aspects of its business when handling their environmental effects.
• The new norm takes a more central and tangible approach. It is about any site getting the correct biodiversity strategy in its own particular environment for the problems of biodiversity, and setting and meeting locally acceptable goals.

Rio Tinto paid environmental fines in 2017 exceeding US$ 89,502, including US$ 38,330 levied against the Mount Thorley Warkworth mine’s major environmental accident in 2016. The remainder was paid for non-significant environmental incidents: a sump spilling into a lake in Australia, pump system water leakage and excess pH in drain water; in Canada;. As part of the cycle of quality development, we checked all our environmental policies, and incorporated participatory environmental reporting by members of the local community (Shen, & Zhang, 2019).

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