Corporate social involvement

Corporate social involvement (CSI) is a distinct element in our community relations strategy. It refers to our voluntary contributions to initiatives that benefit the communities associated with our operations. CSI projects aim to deliver added value for communities over and above a commitment to compensate for impacts or to fulfill regulatory or licence requirements.

CSI principles

The aim of our corporate social involvement (CSI) approach is to create 'shared value' through longer-term community outcomes that align closely with our strategic objectives. Our CSI approach is determined by these principles:

• local community focus on those communities associated with our operations and activities
• devolve responsibility to our commodity businesses
• consistent with highest industry standards and international best practice
• flexibility and funding for areas most in need to ensure CSI expenditure in any region is determined by need and strategic benefit and not by profitability of the operations in that region
• financial and organisational efficiency
• stable funding to avoid ‘boom and bust' support on the back of cyclical earnings
• appropriate governance structure that prohibits support for all political activity, individual sponsorship, single faith groups or initiatives that primarily benefit employees

Building social capital

While CSI programmes are likely to include a mixture of ‘quick win' and longer-term projects, companies are increasingly emphasising investments that build lasting social and human capital, over projects such as building infrastructure. This includes:

• skills transfer and training
• improving organisational capacity
• providing direct management assistance and advice

We are increasingly seeking partnership opportunities to improve implementation and increase funding to maximise the longer-term outcomes of our investment.

Sustainable projects

Ensuring our CSI initiatives are sustainable beyond the life of our operations in a region is a challenge. Partnering with third parties and securing government support from the earliest stages are often effective strategies to help ensure sustainability where projects are likely to require ongoing support for many years.

Measuring and reporting CSI

Historically, we have been good at measuring the inputs involved in CSI expenditure (for example, how much money is invested) and the outputs of CSI programmes (for example, how many families benefited).

However, measuring longer-term community outcomes (such as improvements in infant mortality rates or unemployment rates) and, critically, how those outcomes are perceived by the community, is less well developed. We are working to define appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators for our CSI programmes.

Stable, predictable support

We are committed to contributing a minimum of 1% of our profit before tax each year to fund initiatives that benefit the communities associated with our operations, particularly those located in remote areas or in regions with a lower level of social and economic development and infrastructure. We manage our funding so that our community initiatives receive stable and continuing financial support.

CSI plans

All managed projects and operations develop a CSI plan to ensure our giving contributes to SD in local communities. We develop these plans in collaboration with stakeholders, and review them at least yearly. Each operation assesses local community needs, determines which initiatives to support and ensures that partner organisations are able to meet agreed outcomes.