ACCR's lines on BHP review

Executive Director of Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) Brynn O’Brien said:

We welcome BHP’s detailed review of positions taken by the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), the US Chamber of Commerce (USCC), and the World Coal Association (WCA).

It is extraordinary that the world’s biggest miner has signaled an intention to exit the world’s peak coal lobby, the World Coal Association. This is a message that even organisations, like BHP, with large coal assets, do not value aggressive anti-climate lobbying.

However, BHP’s equivocation in relation to membership of the MCA, in giving the MCA another 12 months to change its tune on coal, points to the highly-charged environment in which climate policy is made in Australia.

We also have concerns about the review’s failure to evaluate, in detail, the activities of other organisations, for example, the NSW Minerals Council, and Queensland Resources Council, who in some ways take positions even more at odds with BHP’s than those taken by the MCA. BHP also continues to withhold information about the amount of shareholder funds spent on memberships.

We will await BHP’s final decisions on its membership of organisations listed in the review.