As a world leading mining and infrastructure solutions company, our people work in many high-energy settings that involve multifaceted risks. Safety and the prevention of harm to people, the natural environment and cultural heritage are our top priorities, always.
Our Code of Business Conduct
Our Code of Business Conduct (Our Code) continues to evolve with us and has recently been updated to strengthen our culture of safety, and emphasise our strong position on the rights of First Nations Peoples and cultural heritage, human rights, modern slavery and workplace sexual harassment. Our Code highlights everyone’s authority, and obligation to stop work to protect our people, the environment and Indigenous cultural heritages.
Our Code also emphasises the importance of speaking up. We encourage everyone to speak up about things they think are wrong, against the law or that breach Our Code. We are committed to ensuring everyone can raise concerns freely, without fear, and that any concerns are dealt with swiftly, fairly and confidentially using our confidential, anonymous Speak Up service. Our commitment to supporting and protecting people who speak up is also reinforced in our updated Whistleblower Policy.
Prioritising workplace safety
The health and safety of our people is our priority, always and we maintain a relentless focus on preventing fatalities and serious injuries. By operating responsibly, continuously improving our practices and leveraging smart technology, we are helping to enable safer environments for our people, customers, business partners, and those who live and work in the communities we work in.
Our Safety, Health and Environment Policy affirms our commitment to avoid harm, empower our people to perform their tasks safely and responsibly, and continuously improve our performance. Major Hazard Management (MHM) is our key program to deliver this strategy, identifying the most serious risks to our people, and implementing controls to manage those risks. Our MHM program covers major hazards common to most of our operations, supplemented by additional major hazard information specific to important processes and technologies. We use feedback from our assurance processes and High Potential Incidents (HPIs) to develop and improve our MHM controls.
We recognise that mental and physical wellbeing are critical for our people to thrive. Our employee engagement survey has been updated to include leading indicators on mental health and wellbeing to ensure we prioritise progress in these areas. We have also reviewed our risk assessment tools to identify and assess psychosocial factors in the workplace and ensure we are addressing areas of increased risk.
Enhancing product security
As a manufacturer of commercial explosives and blasting initiating systems, we have specific responsibilities to ensure we partner with and sell to organisations that will use our products for their intended purpose. We also have a responsibility to eliminate or minimise any risks to safety, health or the environment across the lifecycle of our products and services.
We take our product security responsibilities seriously and strive to champion safe and secure value chains. We select our partners in accordance with detailed due diligence that covers security across the product lifecycle from transport to storage and final end-use.
We implement track-and-trace technology as part of our product stewardship. The technology enables higher accuracy in inventory control and allows us to provide detailed information to authorities in the event of a product is lost or stolen or recovered from the hands of unauthorised persons.
Respecting and upholding human rights
We are committed to respecting and upholding the human rights of our people, and those who may be impacted by our operations and business activities. The mining and metals industry faces increased scrutiny over its human rights obligations and approaches, and Orica is working to meet stakeholder expectations and support the industry to raise human rights protections and processes.
Our approach to respecting human rights is guided by internationally recognised standards such as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Our approach is embedded within our Charter, our Code of Business Conduct, our approach to risk management approach our organisational policies.
Protecting cultural heritage and engagement with First Nations People
Our operations have the potential to impact First Nations People and areas of significant cultural heritage. We continue to work collaboratively with our customers to protect cultural heritage in Australia and internationally, and empower our employees to stop work if there is any concern about a risk to cultural heritage. We are continuing to learn and improve in this important area of focus.
In Canada, our ongoing partnerships with First Nations people support community development, education and employment. In Australia, since developing our First Nations Engagement and Cultural Heritage Roadmap in FY2021, we launched our inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in FY2022 and have deepened our cultural understanding and strengthened ties with First Nations people. In FY2025, we will launch the Innovate phase of our Australian Reconciliation Action Plan.
We seek to form a genuine connection to the land and waters on which we operate by building respectful and meaningful relationships with First Nations communities who have always cared for their surrounding environments.
Addressing Modern Slavery
We have a responsibility to understand and address modern slavery risks in our supply chain as well as our operations.
Orica is dedicated to upholding human rights across our operations and supply chains. We seek to constantly improve our approach to managing human rights risks, including modern slavery. As a leader in our industry, we acknowledge our role and use our international presence to advocate for human rights throughout our network and the wider sector.
As a global organisation, we are exposed to a broad range of human rights and modern slavery risks in the geographies and sectors we engage with. Orica continues to make progress against our modern slavery commitments and our view is that businesses should respect human rights and act to ensure they are upheld. Read our latest Modern Slavery Statement.