Health, safety and environment

Safety drives every aspect of our work; from the wellbeing of our crews and the preparation of our marine environment, to the successful delivery of our cargo. Safety is our primary motivator.

We develop and implement health, safety, environment and community policies relating to marine transportation and incorporate Rio Tinto standards where legislative requirements fall short of the Group's requirements. It is our goal to achieve ISO14001 certification on Rio Tinto's marine assets by 2008.

RightShip

RightShip Pty Ltd is a special purpose joint venture company formed by two of the world's largest dry bulk shippers, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. Both companies concluded in 2001 that in order to provide a consistent ship vetting standard and to drive improvements in ship health, safety and environmental performance that they would be best served by combining previously smaller but independent approaches.

RightShip is comprised of a core group of dedicated ship vetting specialists which aims to raise marine safety standards throughout the world. In doing this, RightShip is clearly focused on safety - the safety of crews, ships, customers' cargoes and the environment.

Since starting as an in-house vetting capability for the founding organisations, RightShip is now performing ship vetting for more than 30 third party users, markedly increasing its ability to influence vessel standards.

MarineSafe

Rio Tinto Marine's safety management system (MarineSafe) has been designed to meet the health, safety and environmental requirements of the Rio Tinto Group. In many areas MarineSafe exceeds statutory requirements of the international maritime industry. Rio Tinto Marine is unique in that the Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) requirements are met as part of the corporate HSE management system both at office locations, at the site of maritime operations for Rio Tinto Marine. Here MarineSafe policy and procedures are applied and become mandatory under Management Agreements with all category two contractors.

MarineSafe embodies the performance standards of Rio Tinto where they apply to marine operations.  MarineSafe incorporates the three stage HSEQ Hazard and Risk Management Work Cycle when operating owned and managed vessels. It also provides, and formulates, operational procedures through an extensive occupational exposure monitoring program to verify that its marine workplaces remain safe for all employees. Rio Tinto Marine employees actively provide leadership, training and resources to ensure the implementation of these standards aboard its vessels. All Rio Tinto Marine vessels are certified ISO 14001 compliant. Over and above which, additional environmental monitoring has been implemented aboard all Rio Tinto Marine vessels.