Corporate social involvement

Xstrata supports a wide range of projects and initiatives that are designed to improve the social and economic wellbeing of our employees, their families and the people living in the communities close to our operations.

Social involvement plans have been developed to govern the activities of every Xstrata managed operation, either at a regional level where communities are clustered together, or on an individual basis in remote locations. The plans are developed through engagement with local communities and identify and develop projects to address key concerns or priorities. Social involvement encompasses financial contributions, management time and expertise and in-kind contributions. At the end of 2005, all of Xstrata's commodity businesses had developed and implemented social involvement plans or had implemented regional social development plans where a number of operations are situated in close proximity.

In 2005, Xstrata set aside $24.7 million, a significant increase over 2004 ($10.4 million).

Graph of CSI by type Graph of CSI by region

Our corporate social involvement (CSI) is based around five principles:

Local focus: Our CSI programmes are focused on local communities with which we are associated and where our operations are located.

Maximum devolution: Primary responsibility remains with the commodity businesses which are best placed to assess suitable projects through consultation with local communities.

Best practice: Our CSI policy will be consistent with the highest standards of our industry and will reflect international best practice.

Flexibility: Our approach to CSI allows a wide range of responses, recognising that the extent and nature of CSI will vary across commodity businesses and across geographies within a particular business. This means that CSI expenditure is not necessarily evenly spread across geographies or businesses but is directed to where it is most needed.

Financial and organisational efficiency: CSI expenditure should take advantage of our financial structure and should avoid ‘boom and bust' support on the back of cyclical earnings performance.

We provide support for a wide range of initiatives in the following categories:

  • enterprise and job creation;
  • environment;
  • education;
  • social and community development;
  • health; and
  • culture and art.

We do not support:

  • political parties;
  • individuals; or
  • church/religious activities which are exclusive to one faith community.

CSI excludes expenditure to benefit employees exclusively, except where there is a significant benefit for the wider community (for example a shared resource such as a training centre). In accordance with this policy, no political donations were made in 2005.