Climate change

The impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt around the world: weather patterns, regulations and laws and people’s expectations are all changing. We’re working to avoid and manage climate change risks, and we’re committed to the effort to reduce carbon emissions to avoid our shared earth warming, as agreed to by nations participating in the Paris Agreement of 2015.

Read more about our approach to climate change in our Sustainable Development Report.

Our approach to climate change is focused on three pillars:

1. Emission reduction – We must all work to reduce the amount of carbon released to the atmosphere if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

• Our short-term emission reduction target is to stay below the baseline established in the 2015 financial year, our first full year of operation, through to 2021¹.
• We will review our emission reduction approach every five years from 2021, in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) updated scientific reports, to ensure we make a pragmatic and affordable transition toward the global goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

2. Climate change opportunity – We aim to make a difference by developing natural resources, improving people’s lives now and for generations to come. To ensure the commodities we produce remain in demand in a world limited to 2 degrees or less of global warming. In response, we:

• Commit to continuing to provide the raw materials that support climate action and enable the transition to a lower carbon future. We have chosen not to develop any new greenfield energy coal basins.
• Work in partnership with green finance providers to create long-term benefits to society and the environment.
  

3. Climate resilience – To work toward climate resilience for our host communities and operations, we need to understand and respond to the physical impacts of climate change, including changed weather and temperature. We will:

• Implement Intelligent Land Management (ILM) so that land holdings are used to create enduring social, economic and environmental value through projects such as water and biodiversity conservation.
• Incorporate climate change modelling and scenarios in our planning and investment decisions to ensure the communities we work in and our operations are more resilient to changes in rainfall, temperature and extreme weather events.
  
  

Carbon Pricing

We believe that carbon pricing is an effective mechanism to support global emission reduction. We support carbon pricing that is globally competitive and broad-based, covering all industry sectors and all possible emission sources. We would like to see the revenue raised from carbon pricing used to support the transition to a low carbon future.

Every year we complete a global carbon price forecast, and we apply a regionally specific price on carbon in our valuations, planning and capital expenditure decisions. This ensures that over time we are prepared for carbon pricing and can make decisions today that lower our emission profile long-term.

¹The carbon emission reduction target is based on absolute, Scope 1 carbon emissions and in the event of any mergers, acquisitions or divestments the FY15 baseline will be recalculated.