participant experiences:

why newmont australia participated in the corporate responsibility index

By John Dow, Managing Director, Newmont Australia

Participation in the Corporate Responsibility Index demands commitment on two levels – first is the time and effort required to gather together such an extensive representation of the way a company conducts its business. Second is a commitment to exposing our strategies, systems and performance to the world.

For Newmont, a robust reporting system meant most of the information was reasonably readily available to us – due largely to both our internal, discipline-specific monthly and quarterly reporting, but also our annual external reporting for which metrics have been designed for the measurement and reporting of our performance across health and safety, environment, community relations (including social investment) and employee wellbeing.

Despite the processes we have in place, the Index highlighted areas where our reporting could be strengthened or where other aspects of our activities could be considered for inclusion in the reporting system. This was particularly the case in the categories relating to supply chain management, an area that despite much effort, remains a challenge for us in relation to corporate responsibility.

This is one of the benefits of participating in such a survey. Not only are we tested by the extensiveness of the questions and topics covered in the survey, but we are also reminded of the gaps in our own systems.

The other significant benefit is in helping to enhance our ability to be more transparent by causing us to both collect the data required (some of which is not routinely collected for other reporting purposes) and by agreeing to make the results public.

There can appear a degree of reputational risk in participating in corporate responsibility surveys – how will we compare to our peers, will our internal view of our performance be comparable to an external view, what will the public think of our rating? Having participated, I can say the exercise is more an opportunity to gauge the health of our own corporate responsibility management tools, in terms of effectiveness and integration across the organisation, and to take the pulse of the external corporate responsibility environment and public interest.

One of the challenges is in trying to capture the countless activities that occur across the Company that contribute to our overall corporate responsibility effort, but that are considered part of the ‘norm’ and are as such, not considered to be corporate responsibility -specific activities.

The learnings from the outcome of the survey are also valuable in helping us to determine where our efforts in corporate responsibility should be focussed moving forward. We are encouraged by the preliminary feedback and and will volunteer to participate again in 2005.

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www.newmont.com/australia

If you are interested in discussing Newmont Australia, contact:
Danielle Martin
Manager - Communications
Newmont Australia Limited
Ph: +61 8 8303 1911
Fax: +61 8 8303 1900
Mob: 0418 295 324
email: danielle.martin@newmont.com

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The Corporate Responsibility Index is funded by the Australian Federal Government. The Index, developed and maintained by Business in the Community in the UK, is a project of St James Ethics Centre supported by Ernst & Young. Our media partners are The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Project catalyst: Pilotlight Australia.