Partnerships
Globally, we face enormous sustainability challenges. By collaborating with industry bodies, NGO’s, research and educational institutions, customers, suppliers and peers to create innovative solutions and shared value, leveraging our core capabilities, assets and networks, we look to overcome these sustainability challenges and create better outcomes for our people and our planet.
We work with external partners across our business on projects that deliver a range of commercial, environmental and social benefits. We also seek opportunities to collaborate through voluntary initiatives.
Our current partnerships
Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering –partnering since 2009
We are the founding partner of the Academy’s Science and Technology Education Leveraging Relevance (STELR) project. Since 2009 we have worked with the Academy to bring STELR materials into science classrooms in communities in which we operate across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

We have partnered with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation since 2011, which has included providing funding to the Reef Blitz program and the development of a three-year partnership commencing in 2018 for a Reef Innovation Fund.

We have proudly supported The Smith Family, Australia’s largest children’s education charity, through their flagship Learning for Life scholarship program in the Pilbara since 2014. We are also the founding partner of The Smith Family’s Learning for Life community in Gladstone, Queensland and are supporting a three-year project to digitise The Smith Family’s Let’s Count early numeracy program to extend their reach. We have also been able to offer this training to early childhood educators in the communities of our manufacturing sites in Limay, The Philippines and Gomia, India.
Other Major Multi-year Initiatives
Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service, Hunter, NSW, Australia
Project Cure - partnering to strengthen healthcare systems globally, Denver, North America providing support in Dominican Republic, Ghana and Mexico
Funzeleo STEM Education, Zambia, Africa
Enhancement of Grace Campbell Reserve, Bayside Council, NSW, Australia
House of Learning and Development, Jakarta, Indonesia
Spotlight on
- Australian bushfires
- Clontarf Foundation
- YCAB Foundation
Orica donates $1million to Australian bushfire relief
Following a disastrous fire season in Australia in 2020, Orica stepped up to support the fire-fighting effort as well as the ongoing bushfire recovery.
We donated a total of $1 million including a $400,000 donation to the NSW Rural Fire Service and $400,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal. The remaining $200,000 was set aside to match dollar-for-dollar donations made by our employees to a range of charities responding to community, wildlife and economic impacts of the bushfire including Foodbank Australia, WIRES and Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal.
Improving education outcomes for young Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander men
In 2020 we launched a national partnership with the Clontarf Foundation in Australia. The partnership aims to improve the education, discipline, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men by setting up academies in school communities around Australia.
The Clontarf Foundation currently have 135 academies with approximately 8,000 boys enrolled in programs nationwide. By supporting young indigenous men to stay at high school longer and receive a better education, the Foundation is helping address the disadvantage cycle across health, education, employment and incarceration.
“We as a Foundation are excited to enter into this new partnership with Orica and begin to engage locally where we co-exist. Private Sector funding brings with it so much richness and variety to our programmes and in turn, our Academy members lives. We are extremely grateful that many of the young men in our programmes will now have the opportunity to explore the mining industry, via Orica’s vast array of operational sites.”
Russell Aitken, Partnerships Manager NSW, Clontarf Foundation
Partnering with YCAN Foundation to deliver computer training to children in Indonesia
Orica has partnered with the YCAB Foundation in Indonesia to support youth development near our operations on Wetar Island. YCAB are delivering the Computer Fun Learning program to students in grade 4 – 6. The children have access to 20 computers at YCAB’s learning centre and classes are delivered Monday to Friday.
“Hi, my name is Putri. I am a student in grade 5. I am now in Computer Fun Learning kids level 2, and this is the second year I am attending this course. I don’t have a computer in my house, that’s why I like this course, because I can learn about using computer. I also enjoy the class because I can learn English from the software we are using. I usually finish the tasks given in the classroom pretty quickly, and I help my friends finishing their tasks."
"I want to be a computer teacher when I grow up, because I have learned about computer and I like helping her friends in the classroom. Thank you YCAB & Orica for this computer course!”