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Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity StrategyOur Strategy to make the Protection of Biodiversity a Business Priority
Paola Kistler
Global Practice Leader Product Stewardship
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 2
Where we operate KeyMines and mining projects
Smelters, refineries, power facilities and processing plants remote from mine
Aluminium Copper DiamondsEnergyIron ore Minerals
Africa
Europe
SouthAmerica
NorthAmerica
Australasia
Asia
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 3
Elements of a business case
• Access to land, sea and related natural resources (directly, or
through supply chains)
• Legal and social (functional) license to operate
• Access to capital and insurance
• Access to markets for products (old and new)
• Access to human capital
• A seat at Policy development table
Maintaining Access to land and resources is a key driver in the Biodiversity Strategy business case
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 4
Our goal of net positive impact (NPI)
Rio Tinto’s goal is to have a net positive impact on biodiversity.
This means minimising the impacts of our business and contributing to biodiversity conservation to ensure that a region ultimately benefits as a result of our presence.
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 5
Role of collaboration in achieving NPI Capacity to deliver
• Rio lacked technical and strategic capacity in Biodiversity policy issues
• partner organisation provided this Setting Expectations
• NGOs provide a benchmark of societal expectations
Mutual Vision
• NGOs shared a common vision with RT to advance biodiversity performance at operations
Business relevance
• Engagement provides positive influence on our core business activities
Access to Broader Networks
• Enables the Rio Tinto to tap into networks
Our Biodiversity PartnersIUCN*BirdLife InternationalConservation InternationalFauna & Flora InternationalRoyal Botanic Gardens KewEarthwatch**
Various National RelationshipsBirds AustraliaAustralian MuseumAudubon US
Global InitiativesBBOPWBCSD EVIBSR ES WG
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 6
The Mitigation Hierarchy
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 7
Tools for the Job
The tools include:
• A Group wide Biodiversity Values Assessment profile
• A Biodiversity Action Planning (BAP) tool
• Quality Hectares biodiversity metric
• An offset design tool (under development)
A number of tools have been developed to help our operations identify, plan for and manage biodiversity programmes based on the needs of business and the biodiversity values of the regions in which they operate.
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 8
Biodiversity Values Assessment
• A group wide survey to assess the biodiversity profile of the Rio Tinto group.
• Assessment is independent of management intervention.
• Operations are ranked into ‘very high’, ‘high’, ‘moderate’ and ‘low’ biodiversity value groupings.
• Key biodiversity broad issues that are examined as part of this assessment are:
• Interaction with protected areas
• Interaction with sensitive habitats
• Species of conservation value
• Site specific context
• Conservation maturity
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 9
2009 Group Values Assessment
2009 Biodiversity Values Results
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Very High High Medium Low
Ranking
Num
ber
of Sit
es
Over the next 5 years Rio Tinto will focus its management actions on the sites that have a very high or high biodiversity context ranking
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 10
Biodiversity Action Planning
• Identify the important biological values on andoff site at the species, habitat and ecosystemservice level.• Understand what impacts mining activities andinfrastructure have on these features.• Develop a plan to mitigate the impact (consideringavoidance, minimisation, rehabilitation, offsets andadditional conservation actions).
To achieve our NPI goal, an operation must be able to:
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 11
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
Cu
mu
lati
ve I
mp
act
to B
iod
ivers
ity F
eatu
re
(e.g
. h
ecta
res o
f sen
sit
ive h
ab
itat)
NPI Baseline
NPI Baseline Year
Cumulative Impact Avoided Through Effective Threat Reduction (Avoidance and Minimization)
Actual gross cumulative impact with threat reduction
Potential gross cumulative impact without threat reduction or compensation
Pre-2004 footprint not requiring compensation
Deadline for achieving NPI
Actions required to mitigate residual footprint and achieve NPI (Restoration, Offsets, ACAs)Actual residual
cumulative impact with threat reduction and compensation
The BAP results in a plan to get from…..
Here
To Here
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 12
Measuring NPI: Quality hectares metric
• Rio Tinto’s fundamental unit of measurement for biodiversity
losses and gains is Quality Hectares (QH)
• Any biodiversity value can be expressed as a combination of its
spatial extent and quality (or condition) :
– The area over which a species is found combined with the species
density or habitat quality in this area
– The area over which a “non-timber forest product” (e.g. a medicinal
plant) is found and some measure of the density of this product or
the habitat quality as a surrogate for this density measure.
• For example, 200ha of forest at 50% ‘optimum quality’ is
expressed as 100 Quality Hectares.
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 13
Quality Hectares at QMM
Habitat typeLosses
(QH)Gains (QH)
Net Impact2004-2015
Fort Dauphin-type littoral forest (Mandena, Petriky, Ste Luce) -51 +124 +73
Littoral forest (all the above plus Mahabo and Ambatotsirongorongo) -51 +185 +134
Forest - all types (all littoral forest plus Tsitongambarika humid forests) -51 +501 +450
• NPI accounting carried out as part of QMM BAP• Current analysis shows that, QMM has a Net Positive Impact on forest
types in the period 2004-2015 (period 2010 to 2015 predictive). • As the project progresses post 2015 it may become net negative as
biodiversity impact (through clearance becomes greater than present compensation measures
• Additional compensation measures are being developed to counter this clearance
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 14
Target Setting
• At the group level we have an internal NPI target which we are initially
applying to operations that have a biodiversity values ranking of Very
High and High.
• At an operational level we set targets and objectives for local biodiversity
values through the biodiversity action planning process.
• We therefore work on a diverse range of conservation issues including:
– Salmon habitat restoration (Scotland)
– Invasive ant and weed programmes (Northern Territory Australia)
– Shore bird habitat restoration (Utah USA)
– Littoral forest conservation (Madagascar)
– Chimpanzee population management (Guinea)
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 15
“Conservation actions intended to compensate for the residual, unavoidable harm to biodiversity caused by development projects, so as to ensure no net loss of biodiversity”
• pursued once all possible efforts to avoid and minimise harm to
biodiversity have been under taken.
• not acceptable when unique, ‘un-tradable’ values are at stake
• size and complexity will vary & must be comensurate with biodiversity
loss
• where possible ‘like for like’ but not limited to ‘like for like’
• stakeholder engagement critical in identification, development and
implementation
Biodiversity Offsets: A critical tool in NPI
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 16
Conservation Offsets and Actions
Biodiversity offsetting is increasingly being used by Rio Tinto operations to compensate for residual impacts on biodiversity
April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 17
Path Forward
• Continued refinement of biodiversity metrics
– quality hectares
– Biodiversity values
• Valuation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
– IUCN Madagascar study
– TEEB
• Biodiversity offset methodologies
– Aggregated offsets
– Offset packaging (carbon and other ecosystem services)
– Biobanking