Performance data

Rio Tinto's sustainable development data are reported for calendar years and, unless otherwise stated, represent 100 per cent of the parameter at each managed operation, even though Rio Tinto may have only partial ownership. With the exception of the Engineered Products and Packaging units, which are in the process of being divested, former Alcan operations have adopted Rio Tinto definitions and are included Rio Tinto datasets from 1 January 2008.

Environmental stewardship

2005 2006 2007*** 2008 2009
Significant environmental incidents 8 8 9 17 12
Fines and prosecutions - environment (US$ '000) 67.9 56.8 9.6 15.5 80.1
Energy use (Petajoules) 245* 257 266 (540) 553 497
Greenhouse gas emissions - on site (million tonnes CO2 equivalent) 14.6 15.6 15.6 (29.6) 30.4* 26.1
Greenhouse gas emissions - total (million tonnes CO2 equivalent) 26.8* 28.2* 28.3 (49.3) 49.8* 41.0
Freshwater withdrawal (billion litres) 370 392 411 518* 487
Land disturbed (hectares) 1,083 1,112 1,154 1,373* 3,410
Land rehabilitated (hectares) 376 401 418 471* 402
Mineral waste disposed or stored (million tonnes)** 1,739 1,857 1,886 1,930* 1,346
Non mineral waste disposed or stored (million tonnes)** 0.18 0.17 0.14 0.30* 0.31
SOx emissions (thousand tonnes) 79 70 69* 200* 202
NOx emissions (thousand tonnes) - 61 64 82* 63
Total fluoride emissions (thousand tonnes) 1.13 1.19 1.19 4.49* 4.39

 

* Numbers corrected from those originally published following data verification
** Mineral and non mineral waste data excludes material that has been reused
*** Bracketed data includes contributions from the former Alcan operations for 2007
'-' indicates the parameter is not applicable or data is not available