Introduction
The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) is a mining enterprise whose primary business is mining iron ore (IBSWorld 2022), however, also extends to mining copper, nickel, potash, and metallurgical coal (BHP 2023a). As BHP competes within a competitive mining industry, BHP’s major competitors include Vale, Rio Tinto, Pertamina and Aluminum Corporation of China (Craft 2023). Whilst BHP is based in Melbourne, BHP has mining operations in over 90 locations throughout countries including Australia, the United States and Canada (BHP 2023e). However, BHP’s largest mine is located in Western Australia called South Flank and produces 145 million tonnes of iron ore annually (BHP 2023b).
BHP has made it their mission to focus on supporting the global transition towards renewable energy through providing resources ‘the world needs to develop and decarbonise’ (BHP 2023c). BHP aims to achieve this through long- and short-term strategies in increasing their investment and exploration amongst copper and nickel (BHP 2023d), given these minerals are used in renewable energy sources and electric cars (BHP 2023c). Thus, BHP’s long-term strategy includes investing in new copper and nickel projects such as their $40 million investment in the Kabanga Nickel mine, in Tanzania in 2022 (BHP 2023d). In the short term, the BHP board has undertaken discussions with stakeholders to understand attitudes and expectations from stakeholders of BHP in relation to climate change (BHP 2020:9).
Figure 3: BHP strategy
Source: (BHPd 2023:10)
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
In BHP (2023d), BHP highlights its Corporate Social Responsible (CSR) aligned actions and programs. These include BHP’s commitment to reducing emissions created from their operations, the BHP Foundation, and the Matched Giving Program. (BHP 2020) highlights BHP’s environmental CSR initiative through their commitment to ‘achieve and maintain net-zero operational emissions by 2050.’ Given that the mining industry is responsible for emitting 4 to 7% of global greenhouse emissions (Delevingne, Glazener, Grégoir and Henderson 2020), the industry has a strong reputation for their operations being harmful towards the environment. Through this commitment, BHP is trying to maintain stakeholder relations with environmentally conscious stakeholders by highlighting BHP’s aim in improving their sustainability and separating themselves from the industry reputation. However, (Ker 2022) reveals in 2022, BHP sought approval from the federal government to ‘build a new Queensland coal mine which would run for up to 90 years.’ According to (Delevingne, Glazener, Grégoir and Henderson 2020), 1.5 to 4.6 gigatons of emissions are emitted during coal mining. Thus, while BHP highlights their commitment to having net zero operational emissions by 2050, their actions are undermining the effectiveness of their CSR initiative given this expansion of investing in this highly pollutant investment is damaging towards the environment.
In BHP (2023d), BHP donated US$34.5 million to the BHP Foundation. The BHP Foundation is a charity organisation funded only by BHP and conducts environmental, ethical, philanthropic, and economic CSR initatives. Initiatives supported by the BHP Foundation include the 10 Deserts Project which is an Australian outback conservation group (BHP Foundation 2023). Given BHP’s mines in Australia are primarily based in the Australian Outback, BHP is using environmental CSR to maintain its relations with traditional landowners within the outback, and to demonstrate to investors and traditional landowners that while BHP profits from mining in the outback, this program enables BHP to be seen as a responsible miner who respects the land they work with. This use of CSR has provided effective change given that the funding of the BHP Foundation has enabled the 10 Deserts Project to improve Indigenous land management programs that have provided ‘broader social cultural and economic benefits’ to local Indigenous communities (BHP Foundation 2021:1).
Figure 5: 10 Deserts Project Strategies, Activities and Outcomes
Lastly, BHP utilises philanthropic CSR through their Matched Giving program where, in 2023, BHP donated ‘US$1.2 million.’ Workplace Giving (2023) explains that the Matched Giving program is where ‘for every BHP employee donates, BHP donates two more.’ The program provides funds raised towards vulnerable ‘communities, regions, and nations’, all in an effort to make society more resilient and sustainable for the future (Workplace Giving 2023). Through this program, BHP can be seen as an organisation that believes in providing social value towards society and aims to be seen as a more approachable mining organisation as opposed to its counterparts, given that mining companies are typically ‘susceptible to negative public scrutiny’ (Holzman 2020). The program has shown to be effective given that the program raised US$3.70 million in 2018 and BHP won a silver award in the 2016 Workplace Giving Excellence Awards (One Million Donors 2018), further highlighting the effectiveness of the program.
Thus, through BHP’s various CSR initiatives, they are all diversity targeted to maintain relationships with salient and non-salient stakeholders. While BHP’s commitment in reducing their operational emissions is an ineffective use of CSR, the BHP Foundation and Match Giving program effectiveness is proven by their ability to maintain stakeholder relations and provide effective change.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion policy
In 2016, BHP published its diversity and inclusion policy through their BHP diversity and inclusion statement. BHP states they are ‘committed to providing a safe, inclusive and supportive workplace for all’ (BHP 2023f). However, BHP have not upheld this commitment after it was reported there were more than 100 cases of sexual harassment across BHP’s offices, mines, and accommodation villages in 2022 (Toscano 2022). This high number of cases reflect the ineffectiveness of BHP’s polices in preventing sexual harassment within the workplace. While BHP did either fire, resign, or remove 101 out of the 103 individuals involved in these cases, BHP must further strive to promote a work environment safe and inclusive for women.
Figure 6: BHP miners
BHP’s diversity and inclusion policy continues to highlight BHP’s ‘inclusive and diverse teams’ are able to bring diverse views that are ‘respected and valued by their peers and leaders’ (BHP 2023f:1). This policy aims to highlight that BHP’s inclusive and diverse teams enable BHP management to make culturally intelligent (CQ) business decisions. However, Allam (2023) reveals that one of BHP’s iron ore mines in the Pilbara damaged a registered Aboriginal site despite BHP promising not to continue operations without consulting with ‘Banjima traditional owners’. BHP demonstrated poor CQ as they did not consider an Indigenous perspective given; they did not consult with the Banjima traditional owners and did not properly plan nor consider the significance and fragility of the Aboriginal site. Given this event, it highlights the views of diverse employees are not ‘respected or valued’ (BHP 2023f:1) by BHP management. If these diverse views were considered and the Banjima traditional owners were properly consulted, decision makers would have understood the significance of the site towards traditional owners, resulting in BHP more likely standing with their promise.
Thus, BHP’s diversity and inclusion policy does not prove to be effective given the high rate of women being sexually assaulted within BHP’s operations and the ineffectiveness of BHP decision makers not effectively utilising their diverse teams to make CQ intelligent decisions.
Influence of AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are becoming an increasingly valuable tool that businesses, such as BHP, can greatly benefit from.
In May 2023, BHP announced its deal with Microsoft to use AI and machine learning for ‘improving copper recovery’ (BHP 2023g) at their Escondida operation and highlights ‘BHP estimates the world would need to double the amount of copper produced over the next 30 years to keep pace with the development of decarbonised technology.’ Thus, while AI is currently proving to be used for improving copper recovery, AI can also be used to improve recovery of other minerals needed for renewable energy, such as Cobalt. Additionally, AI can help reduce the environmental impact of mining as AI can be used to survey the environmental impact mining has on specific geographical locations (Mine 2023). This information can help mining companies find locations where mining is the least impactful to local ecosystems.
(Ali et al 2020) explains that autonomous trucks today are only able to operate in specific environments and have ‘no perception, intelligence nor of any sort of decision-making ability’ (Ali et al 2020:6037). AI and machine learning can be developed to provide these trucks these abilities, enabling driverless trucks to be used in more mining applications, making mining sites safer given that human input would not be needed in highly dangerous hauling situation (K-Mine 2023). This success is demonstrated through (McKinsey & Company 2017:9) highlighting how Rio Tinto’s increased use of AI in ‘Australia’s Pilbara’ have seen ‘improved safety, better maintenance, lower energy use, and greater operational precision.’
Figure 8: Mining site
However, AI does bring potential risks that can harm other aspects of BHP’s business.
Tai (2020) states how potential risks with AI could include AI systems automatically functioning by themselves after being provided with algorithms and ignoring commands given by a human commander. On a mining site, this is a great concern given that if AI systems operate rouge, it could lead to workers being endangered and injured at work which could cost BHP dearly in potential lawsuits and would negatively impact their reputation.
Secondly, The Economic Times (2023) highlights how AI systems require vast amounts of data to train 'algorithms and improve performance.’ Given this data can include sensitive information, it brings potential privacy concerns around the vulnerability of data being leaked. By BHP potentially using AI within their mining operations or within an office environment, there is a risk of confidential data being leaked without authorisation that risks BHP’s reputation. Thus, AI has shown to be a technology that can revolutionise BHP’s operations, however, has obstacles it must overcome to ensure the safety of workers and confidential data.
Figure 9: Driverless excavator unground mining
I have had a very positive experience through this course as I have been challenged and been given the opportunity to gain valuable skills that I believe will serve me greatly throughout my degree and beyond. My favourite topic was Module 2 on data analytics, which included learning about capital budgeting and risk management. I believe that as a financial analyst, these skills will prove to be invaluable. Previous to this course, I did not understand how powerful Excel was as a tool for accounting and financial professionals. On my holiday's, I would like to learn more about Excel's functionality through taking online classes.
In the course, I found that the most challenging experience I had was working for the first time with a group within a timed environment in assessment 1. This experience enabled me to get out of my comfort zone and led to me getting a distinction, which I was very pleased with. During assessment 2, I was inspired when as a group, we were assessing business proposals and had to understand both financial and non-financial factors in order to make a business decision. I found this task highlighted what I wanted to do when I finish my degree as I enjoy analysing and researching about organisations and providing recommendations based on my analysis. Finally, an experience that sightly confused me but I did find interesting was learning about how accounting is more than just crunching numbers. Prior, I did not understand how subjective and personable the finance and accounting industry can be, which was reflected through the topics about cultural intelligence and considering biases that people have that can influence business decision making.
Throughout the course, I have gained and understood varying perspectives throughout the 3 differing modules. During module 3, I found it interesting learning about the varying perspectives on the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence (AI). Whilst I do believe that AI does have great benefits that can help make business decisions more streamlined and accurate, I do believe that AI has threats too great to ignore given its potential to be used for the wrong reasons. I believe society needs to address the ethical concerns of the usage of AI before its implementation is taken to the next level.
Through this course, I have understood new ideas that have challenged my thinking. Learning about biases challenged my decision-making processes in my daily life. For example, I know that I have a bias towards certain brands I use in my daily life; however, I did not know that this behaviour is an example of choice supportive bias. While I do not believe my support of the brands will change significantly, this insight has made me more vigilant when this bias appears and is something I will consider going forward.
My next course of action is to consider my major and minors for next semester. Given my positive experience in learning about capital budgeting, it has further cemented my desire to study finance as a major and minor in blockchain, as I believe blockchain is a technology that the finance industry will be increasingly adopting. Additionally, I am considering taking some courses on AI as this course has also shown how in the future, business professionals will be increasingly using AI in their daily lives.
Areas I found I could improve after the course is not overthinking questions during an assessment. This downfall I need to develop and address in my future courses. Professionally, this course has given me a sense of what business decision makers do and use to make decisions. This course has enabled me to start working on the professional side of my life and given me ideas on what skills will be needed in the future business workplace.
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