Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity StrategyOur Strategy to make the Protection of Biodiversity a Business Priority

Paola Kistler

Global Practice Leader Product Stewardship

April 21, 2023 Rio Tinto’s Biodiversity Strategy 2

Where we operate KeyMines and mining projects

Smelters, refineries, power facilities and processing plants remote from mine

Aluminium Copper DiamondsEnergyIron ore Minerals

Africa

Europe

SouthAmerica

NorthAmerica

Australasia

Asia

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Elements of a business case

• Access to land, sea and related natural resources (directly, or

through supply chains)

• Legal and social (functional) license to operate

• Access to capital and insurance

• Access to markets for products (old and new)

• Access to human capital

• A seat at Policy development table

Maintaining Access to land and resources is a key driver in the Biodiversity Strategy business case

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Our goal of net positive impact (NPI)

Rio Tinto’s goal is to have a net positive impact on biodiversity.

This means minimising the impacts of our business and contributing to biodiversity conservation to ensure that a region ultimately benefits as a result of our presence.

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Role of collaboration in achieving NPI Capacity to deliver

• Rio lacked technical and strategic capacity in Biodiversity policy issues

• partner organisation provided this Setting Expectations

• NGOs provide a benchmark of societal expectations

Mutual Vision

• NGOs shared a common vision with RT to advance biodiversity performance at operations

Business relevance

• Engagement provides positive influence on our core business activities

Access to Broader Networks

• Enables the Rio Tinto to tap into networks

Our Biodiversity PartnersIUCN*BirdLife InternationalConservation InternationalFauna & Flora InternationalRoyal Botanic Gardens KewEarthwatch**

Various National RelationshipsBirds AustraliaAustralian MuseumAudubon US

Global InitiativesBBOPWBCSD EVIBSR ES WG

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The Mitigation Hierarchy

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Tools for the Job

The tools include:

• A Group wide Biodiversity Values Assessment profile

• A Biodiversity Action Planning (BAP) tool

• Quality Hectares biodiversity metric

• An offset design tool (under development)

A number of tools have been developed to help our operations identify, plan for and manage biodiversity programmes based on the needs of business and the biodiversity values of the regions in which they operate.

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Biodiversity Values Assessment

• A group wide survey to assess the biodiversity profile of the Rio Tinto group.

• Assessment is independent of management intervention.

• Operations are ranked into ‘very high’, ‘high’, ‘moderate’ and ‘low’ biodiversity value groupings.

• Key biodiversity broad issues that are examined as part of this assessment are:

• Interaction with protected areas

• Interaction with sensitive habitats

• Species of conservation value

• Site specific context

• Conservation maturity

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2009 Group Values Assessment

2009 Biodiversity Values Results

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Very High High Medium Low

Ranking

Num

ber

of Sit

es

Over the next 5 years Rio Tinto will focus its management actions on the sites that have a very high or high biodiversity context ranking

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Biodiversity Action Planning

• Identify the important biological values on andoff site at the species, habitat and ecosystemservice level.• Understand what impacts mining activities andinfrastructure have on these features.• Develop a plan to mitigate the impact (consideringavoidance, minimisation, rehabilitation, offsets andadditional conservation actions).

To achieve our NPI goal, an operation must be able to:

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0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

Cu

mu

lati

ve I

mp

act

to B

iod

ivers

ity F

eatu

re

(e.g

. h

ecta

res o

f sen

sit

ive h

ab

itat)

NPI Baseline

NPI Baseline Year

Cumulative Impact Avoided Through Effective Threat Reduction (Avoidance and Minimization)

Actual gross cumulative impact with threat reduction

Potential gross cumulative impact without threat reduction or compensation

Pre-2004 footprint not requiring compensation

Deadline for achieving NPI

Actions required to mitigate residual footprint and achieve NPI (Restoration, Offsets, ACAs)Actual residual

cumulative impact with threat reduction and compensation

The BAP results in a plan to get from…..

Here

To Here

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Measuring NPI: Quality hectares metric

• Rio Tinto’s fundamental unit of measurement for biodiversity

losses and gains is Quality Hectares (QH)

• Any biodiversity value can be expressed as a combination of its

spatial extent and quality (or condition) :

– The area over which a species is found combined with the species

density or habitat quality in this area

– The area over which a “non-timber forest product” (e.g. a medicinal

plant) is found and some measure of the density of this product or

the habitat quality as a surrogate for this density measure.

• For example, 200ha of forest at 50% ‘optimum quality’ is

expressed as 100 Quality Hectares.

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Quality Hectares at QMM

Habitat typeLosses

(QH)Gains (QH)

Net Impact2004-2015

Fort Dauphin-type littoral forest (Mandena, Petriky, Ste Luce) -51 +124 +73

Littoral forest (all the above plus Mahabo and Ambatotsirongorongo) -51 +185 +134

Forest - all types (all littoral forest plus Tsitongambarika humid forests) -51 +501 +450

• NPI accounting carried out as part of QMM BAP• Current analysis shows that, QMM has a Net Positive Impact on forest

types in the period 2004-2015 (period 2010 to 2015 predictive). • As the project progresses post 2015 it may become net negative as

biodiversity impact (through clearance becomes greater than present compensation measures

• Additional compensation measures are being developed to counter this clearance

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Target Setting

• At the group level we have an internal NPI target which we are initially

applying to operations that have a biodiversity values ranking of Very

High and High.

• At an operational level we set targets and objectives for local biodiversity

values through the biodiversity action planning process.

• We therefore work on a diverse range of conservation issues including:

– Salmon habitat restoration (Scotland)

– Invasive ant and weed programmes (Northern Territory Australia)

– Shore bird habitat restoration (Utah USA)

– Littoral forest conservation (Madagascar)

– Chimpanzee population management (Guinea)

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“Conservation actions intended to compensate for the residual, unavoidable harm to biodiversity caused by development projects, so as to ensure no net loss of biodiversity”

• pursued once all possible efforts to avoid and minimise harm to

biodiversity have been under taken.

• not acceptable when unique, ‘un-tradable’ values are at stake

• size and complexity will vary & must be comensurate with biodiversity

loss

• where possible ‘like for like’ but not limited to ‘like for like’

• stakeholder engagement critical in identification, development and

implementation

Biodiversity Offsets: A critical tool in NPI

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Conservation Offsets and Actions

Biodiversity offsetting is increasingly being used by Rio Tinto operations to compensate for residual impacts on biodiversity

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Path Forward

• Continued refinement of biodiversity metrics

– quality hectares

– Biodiversity values

• Valuation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

– IUCN Madagascar study

– TEEB

• Biodiversity offset methodologies

– Aggregated offsets

– Offset packaging (carbon and other ecosystem services)

– Biobanking