Sustainability Practices and Financial Performance of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton

Discuss About The Evaluation Reporting On Ethics And Integrity.

After evaluating the Global reporting initiative report of both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton relatively helps in identifying the critical substantial issues that they highlight for the stakeholders. The report relatively holds substantial evidence regarding the sustainability issues that is faced by organisations, which relates to social wellbeing, Human Rights, and governance. The report presented by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton relatively describe all the relevant corporate social responsibilities that is followed by the organisation during the fiscal year. The Global reporting initiative report directly includes all the relevant financial trends of the organisation, which relatively allows the stakeholders to understand the current financial position of the organisation. adequate accounting information related to future prospects of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto is adequately depicted in the Global reporting initiative report published during the fiscal year. BHP Billiton adequately involves all the relevant information regarding the assets that is owned by the organisation during the fiscal year, which helps in allowing the investors to understand its current operating capability. On the other hand, Rio Tinto directly describes all the relevant operations that it has been conducting during the fiscal year from mining to production. This helps in evaluating the current position of the organisation where all the responsibilities and actions taken by Rio Tinto evaluated by stakeholders. The GRI report of both the companies relatively holds all the risk assessment that is followed by the organisation during the fiscal year to help minimise the adverse impact of risk involved in their operations (Globalreporting.org, 2018).

There is different level of stakeholders who interested in the Global reporting initiative of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.  the stakeholders relatively use the information to identify the ethical operations which has been conducted by the organisation during the fiscal year. Stakeholders such as government, suppliers, competitors, managers, customers, and investors are relatively focused on evaluating the Global reporting initiative of both the company. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto relatively falls under Mining industry where the organisations are responsible for the mining process conducted in Australia and other countries. This relatively increases the environmental impact they have on the society. The report directly helps in identifying the level of operations that is conducted by organisations for fulfilling the guidelines mentioned by Global Reporting Initiative (Riotinto.com, 2018).

Stakeholders such as suppliers and contractor relatively focus on the Global reporting initiative to understand the current financial position of the organisation. In addition, it also helps in identifying the relevant ethical measures that is conducted by the organisation during the fiscal year. The suppliers and contractors relatively evaluate the report to understand the financial position of the organisation and the legal activities that it is conducting. Furthermore, the government evaluates the Global reporting initiative report to understand the environmental measures that is conducted by both the mining companies. This relatively indicates the measures that is taken by the organisation to minimise the environmental damages conducted from the mining process (Globalreporting.org, 2018).

Stakeholder Analysis and Utilization of GRI Reports

The managers and employees utilise the information of the GRI and IR report to understand the level of operations that is conducted by the organisation. Moreover, the financial position and the capability to sustain operations is relatively evaluated from the reports. This mainly allows the managers and employees to understand the level of expenses that it will continue to conduct for its operations. lastly, the investors relatively use the GRI and IR report for detecting the level of financial condition that the current organisation is facing. Furthermore, this is relatively helps in identifying Negative impact from government rules that will be imposed on the operations of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto which might affect its capability to continue its operations.

After evaluating the Global reporting initiative of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton it could be identified that they have maximum similarities, as they are from same industry. Therefore, the GRI guidelines for the mining industry is relatively same, where the overall operations that is conducted by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton is adequately evaluated in the report. Report also consists of all the relevant financial operations of the company and the prospects that will be conducted to improve its current profitable position. This might eventually help the stakeholders to understand decisions made by the management in achieving sustainable growth (Globalreporting.org, 2018).

Both Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton GRI report consist of different types of content, which is required as per the guidelines. These contents are depicted as community relationship, protection of the environment, governance integrity, value chain, sustainability fundamentals, performance data, and Global reporting initiative index. The GRI report directly has all the relevant information that is needed by the stakeholders of the organisation, which indicate the operation conducted during the fiscal year. No significant difference that could be identified between the BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, as both the company fall in the same industry which forces them to provide all the relevant information in the GRI report (Lewellyn & Logsdon, 2017).

The GRI report quality is relatively essential, as it needs to provide all the relevant information to the stakeholders of the organisation. Furthermore, the quality of the information is relatively evaluated on the basis of the following measures.

The information provided by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton can be identified as a reliable source as the company has followed all the guidelines of GRI before publishing the report. This relatively indicates that the information used by the organisation is from reliable source which indicates the actual operational capability of the company. Therefore, it could be understood that the reliability factor of the GRI report is relatively high for both BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto (Ioannou & Serafeim, 2017).

Quality Evaluation of GRI Reports

The GRE report of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton adequate indicates all the relevant information regarding the financial performance of the company. The report directly has all the relevant contents that is needed by stakeholders to understand the operations of the company and is relevant to the needs of the investors. In addition, the relevancy of the GRI report is adequately high, as investors are able to understand the level of operations and productivity that is been conducted by the organisation during the fiscal year.

Both the GRI report of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto can be compared with other competitors or organisations, which would eventually help in understanding the financial position of the company. The compatibility measure is a relatively high as both the organisation has effectively utilised the GRI guidelines in preparing the report (Belkhir, Bernard & Abdelgadir, 2017).

The GRI report of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto is a relatively adequate and is in accordance with the framework, where the operational capability of both the companies can be identified. The GRI report consist of all the relevant frameworks that is mentioned by the GRI guidelines to ensure the stakeholders regarding the current financial condition of the organisation. With the help of GRI framework the organisations are able to enable third parties to identify the environmental impact on their activities. this type of disclosure relatively allows the stakeholders to understand the level of operations and its viability in the eyes of adequate regulators. The organisations also able to disclose their critical impact which has both negative and positive impact on society. economy and environment. This relevant disclosure directly allows the stakeholders to understand the level of activities that is conducted by the organisation during the fiscal year. Hence, it could be understood after the valuation of Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton GRI report that the company adequately follows the framework guidelines, while preparing the report on each fiscal year. On the other hand, Grushina (2017) criticises that companies use manipulative measures while preparing the GRI report, which reduces the efficiency and viability to portray the actual financial condition of the organisation.

The use of GRI report for the stakeholders of the organisation is relatively high as it helps in depicting the financial position of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto during the fiscal year. This helps the stakeholders not only to understand the current financial condition of the organisation but also to detect the ethical operations conducted by the company. the sustainable measures used by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in conducting the operations is effectively depicted in the report, which allows the investors to understand the continuous process of their operations. However, if the organisations in the Mining industry does not comply with the environmental Regulation and use unethical measures in their productive measures could directly attract penalties from the government. Hence, the stakeholders with the help of GRI report is able to understand the capability of the company to continue its operations after complying with the environmental, economic and social obligations (Smit & Bierman, 2017).

Reference

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Globalreporting.org. (2018). Globalreporting.org. Retrieved 7 June 2018, from https://www.globalreporting.org/Information/about-gri/Pages/default.aspx

Grushina, S. V. (2017). Collaboration by design: Stakeholder engagement in GRI sustainability reporting guidelines. Organization & Environment, 30(4), 366-385.

Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2017). The consequences of mandatory corporate sustainability reporting.

Lewellyn, P. G., & Logsdon, J. M. (2017, July). Global Reporting Initiative G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines: Do They Deliver?. In Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society (Vol. 28, pp. 161-172).

Riotinto.com. (2018). Riotinto.com. Retrieved 7 June 2018, from https://www.riotinto.com/documents/RT_SD2017.pdf

Smit, A. M., & Bierman, E. J. (2017). An evaluation of the reporting on ethics and integrity of selected listed motor vehicle companies. African Journal of Business Ethics, 11(1).

Sullivan, R. (2017). Valuing corporate responsibility: How do investors really use corporate responsibility information?. Routledge.