BUACC3706 - Assessment Task 2.pdf ! Federa&onBusinessSchool BUACC3706:FinancialAccoun&ng AssessmentTask2-ASSIGNMENT Contribu&ontooverallassessment: 30%...

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BUACC3706 - Assessment Task 2.pdf ! Federa&onBusinessSchool BUACC3706:FinancialAccoun&ng AssessmentTask2-ASSIGNMENT Contribu&ontooverallassessment:30% __________________________________________________________________________________ Inafoldercalled“AssignmentPapersandRioTintoReport”onMoodle,youwillfind8papers thataddressvariousaspectsofsustainabilityandenvironmentalrepor=ng.RioTinto’s2017 sustainabilitydevelopmentreportisalsouploadedinthisfolder. Required(wordlimit2500words) A. Cri=callyreviewanysixoftheeightpapers; B. Cri=callydiscussthe2017RioTintosustainabledevelopmentreport Pleasenote: • Acri=calreviewrequiresyoutosummariseandevaluateeachpaper. • Tobecri=caldoesnotmeantocri=ciseinanega=veway.Itrequiresyoutoques=onthe giveninforma=onandviewputforthbytheauthor(s).Itrequiresyoutoevaluatethe issuesraisedinapaper. • Evalua=onmeanspresen=ngthestrengthsandweaknessesofapaper. • Overall,wri=ngacri=calreviewinvolvesanalysisandevalua=on. Addi&onalInforma&on: Watchvideoandreadtextonhowtothinkcri=callybeforestar=ngyourassignment: hTp://studyskills.federa=on.edu.au/how-to-think-cri=cally/ Addi=onally,thereisalsoadocumentuploadedonMoodle‘wri=ngacri=calreview’. http://studyskills.federation.edu.au/how-to-think-critically/ FurtherAddi&onalInforma&on ThefollowingmaTersshouldbegivenpar=cularaTen=on: 1. YourassignmentmustbesubmiTednolaterthanthe11.55pm,Sundayendingweek10 ofthesemester. AllassignmentsaretobesubmiTedviathedropboxonMoodle AssessmenttaskssubmiTedaYertheduedate,withoutpriorapprovalorarrangement, willbepenalisedbytenpercent.Requestsforextensionof=memustbemadewithyour lecturerandbasedonSpecialConsidera=onguidelines. 2. Use12pointTimesfontwith2cmmarginsonyourpageand1.5linespacing. 3. Remembertoreferenceyourwri=ngandincludeareferencelistattheendofthereport. 4. Markshavebeenallocatedtoeachspecificsec=onofyourassignment. References Chapter30–Accoun=ngforcorporatesocialresponsibility CraigDeegan,(2016) BUACC3706-AssessmentTask2-AssignmentMarkingScheme Names: StudentNameandID: Basesofassessment MarksPossible PartA:10marksforeachpaper ResearchPaper(1) ResearchPaper(2) ResearchPaper(3) ResearchPaper(4) ResearchPaper(5) ResearchPaper(6) /60 PartB: The2017RioTintosustainabledevelopmentreport /40 OverallPresenta&on–includingcoverpage,line spacing,pagenumbering,referencing. /20 Totalmarks /120 Totaloutof30% writing a critical review.pdf A case of tailing storage.pdf Resources Policy 49 (2016) 119–128 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Resources Policy http://d 0301-42 E-m journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol Environmentally sustainable mining: The case of tailings storage facilities Erica Schoenberger Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 13 November 2015 Received in revised form 24 April 2016 Accepted 25 April 2016 Available online 18 May 2016 Keywords: Sustainability Mining Mine tailings Environment and society Environmental regulation x.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009 07/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ail address: [email protected] a b s t r a c t This paper addresses the question of whether mining can be done in a way that contains and remediates environmental impacts and thereby safeguards the livelihoods of local populations. It focuses on tailings storage facilities (TSF) as the source of most mining-related disasters. It compares outcomes at three mines – two which ended in disaster and one notable success – to try to get at what factors are critical in producing these outcomes. Although the design and construction of TSFs is technically challenging,the paper concludes that the basic causes of TSF failure are political, not technical. A second purpose of this paper is to suggest that a social scientific analysis of engineered projects needs to pay attention to the engineering. & 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Mining is unavoidably environmentally disruptive. Huge quantities of earth and rock are moved, some of it processed to recover valuable minerals, the rest discarded as waste. The mate- rials that are left over after processing, known as tailings, are es- timated to be produced at a rate of anywhere from five to fourteen billion tons per year. They may include sulfide minerals that can induce the formation of acid drainage, other processing chemicals, and process water. Tailings can be disposed of in a variety of ways. In the worst of the cases, they are dumped into adjacent water- bodies, whether rivers, lakes or the sea. They may be backfilled into pits left over from underground mining. Much of the time however, tailings are stored behind dams constructed of mine wastes (Edraki et al., 2014; Adiansyah et al., 2015). Environmental disruption related to mining is inevitable. En- vironmental disaster, on the other hand, should not be, the more so as environmental disasters often trigger social disasters. The most critical arena for reducing the likelihood of mining-related environmental disasters lies in the handling of tailings. Tailings dam failures account for about three-fourths of major mining-related environmental disasters (MMSD, 2002a). A tailings storage facility (TSF) can occupy several square kilometers of land with dams that can reach in the tens of meters. Tailings dams are not like water retention dams. They are built in stages as mining and waste production progresses and they are built usually of mine wastes rather than concrete. Water management is the cri- tical problem. An adequate amount of freeboard must be main- tained, calibrated on maximum likely storm activity. If water is adjacent to the dam itself, erosional or seepage processes may lead to breaching. The foundational geology is also a critical issue bearing on the stability of the embankments. TSFs in seismically active or unusually high rainfall areas are especially vulnerable (Vick, 1990; McLeod and Murray, 2003). The technical challenges of storing mine wastes are significant. Nevertheless, I will argue here that the principal causes of TSF failures are political rather than technical. Much is known within the mine engineering community about how to manage tailings in an environmentally sustainable way (Vick, 1990). This generally involves different techniques for removing the water. These tech- niques are costly, however. Some companies may adopt them voluntarily. It seems reasonable to suppose, however, that until the companies generally are held to higher standards of best practice in managing tailings, we will continue to see catastrophic TSF failures. Best practice bears on two issues in particular for the purposes of this paper. The first concerns when and how environmental considerations – in particular, the design of TSFs – are built into the mine development process. The second concerns the actual tech- niques involved. I will show that when mining companies are held to the highest standards, they can and do meet them. Whether or not they are held to those standards depends in significant measure on the regulatory environment. How exigent are the regulations, how www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03014207 www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009 http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009&domain=pdf http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009&domain=pdf http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009&domain=pdf mailto:[email protected] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.009 E. Schoenberger / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 119–128120 comprehensive are they, and how well are they enforced? The answers to these questions, I will suggest, have in part to do with the influence of the industry in particular jurisdictions compared with other land-intensive uses, especially as this bears on reg- ulatory capacity and competence. Second, the social composition of the surrounding population also matters. Local populations with political and financial resources will have a much greater chance of escaping environmental disasters than those without such resources. In this paper, I will explore the histories of three mines. Two of them suffered major TSF dam collapses with widespread and on- going environmental damage: the Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea (PNG), and the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia. The third mine – the McLaughlin mine in Northern California – is a rare success story in which all of the environmental dislocations ne- cessarily associated with mining were confined on site and, to a significant degree, remediated after active mining ceased. The TSF has retained its integrity. I have explored the Ok Tedi and McLaughlin mine histories elsewhere and will summarize them briefly here (Schoenberger, 2015). The third case is more recent, dating to August 2014. I will focus on the construction and maintenance of tailings dams. What I want to work through in this paper is why the failures failed and why the McLaughlin mine succeeded at mining in an environmentally sound and responsible way. Because the en- vironmental damages of mining are closely linked to social harms (through impacts on livelihoods, exposure to environmental toxins and the like), it is particularly worthwhile getting at the causes of both success and failure in an effort to determine whether mining can increasingly be done in a way that contains and remediates environmental harms. A second purpose of this paper is to suggest that a social sci- entific analysis of engineered projects needs to pay attention to the engineering. Because of the complex interplay among the environmental, the social and the engineered, we risk missing important information if we treat the engineered as a kind of black box. The reverse is probably also true. A quick search through recent journal publications on the topic of tailings storage facilities shows that they are all in technical journals unlikely to reach a social science or policy audience. An important and promising exception to this is the 2011 paper by Franks et al. in the journal Resources Policy. It provides an as- sessment of the advantages and disadvantages of a range of waste disposal methods and proposes a set of principles that could be used to guide industry practice (Franks et al., 2011). I think we need to press further in three ways. First, it is clear that best practice under these principles will be more expensive than many of the approaches that are in use today. The industry as a whole has expressed its commitment to more socially and environmentally responsible methods and, all other things equal, many operations can afford the additional costs and may well implement them voluntarily (ICMM, 2008). But marginal operations may be hard-pressed or simply unwilling to adopt them. Declining ore grades and declining commodity prices se- parately and together are no doubt putting considerable pressure on mining companies at the margin (Mudd, 2007). So we need to consider the degree to which voluntary adherence to the princi- ples proposed by Franks et al. can be relied upon. Second, I will try to show that the way the design of TSFs is integrated into the overall development plan of the mine matters. In brief, it needs to be an integral part of the process of designing the mine itself rather than being viewed as a separate problem. Third, there is a question of who is able to comment author- itatively on the design and operation of TSFs. The industry as a whole is increasingly committed to meaningful participation by local communities which is all to the good. Here, though, I want to argue in favor of binding independent peer review of both the design and operation of TSFs in additional to local stakeholder participation. Section 2 of this paper describes the research method. Sub- sequent sections (3 through 5) describe and analyze the perfor- mance of the three mines in question. Section 4 considers the problems of TSFs more generally, focusing on what is considered best practice by the engineering community and what conditions might foster the wider implementation of this knowledge in the design, construction, maintenance and closure of TSFs. Section 5 offers some concluding thoughts. An epilogue brings some aspects of the story up to date. 2. Research method This research is qualitative and, in a sense, forensic. It is based on a review of published and unpublished documents related to the specific cases and to the engineering of TSFs in general. These documents include technical post mortems of the two failed TSFs. Other information was gathered from correspondence with and conference presentations of practicing engineers with many dec- ades of experience in the construction and maintenance of TSFs. Information was also gathered from company websites, govern- ment websites and newspaper accounts. I have only been able to make one site visit. This was to the McLaughlin mine where I was guided by the former environ- mental manager and the current manager of the
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Answer To: BUACC3706 - Assessment Task 2.pdf ! Federa&onBusinessSchool BUACC3706:FinancialAccoun&ng...

Sanya answered on May 30 2021
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Table of Contents
The environmental incidents in developing country and corporate environmental disclosures (Islam, 2011)    2
Corporate Social Responsibility and the parameters of dialogue with vulnerable others (Robyn Mayes, 2012)    3
Corporate Social Responsibilities: Alternative Perspectives about the need to legislate (Craig Diggan, 2014)    3
Corporate accountability in the Samarco chemical sludge disaster (Costa, 2017)    4
Environmentally sustainable mining: The case of tailings storage facilities (Schoenberger, 2016)    5
Using sustai
nability reporting to assess the environmental footprint of copper mining (S. Northey, 2013)    5
Rio Tinto Sustainability Report 2017 Critical Discussion (Rio Tinto, 2017)    6
References    8
The environmental incidents in developing country and corporate environmental disclosures (Islam, 2011)
The author in the paper tries to draw a correlation between the environmental incidents in a country and the companies’ social and environmental disclosure strategies by taking the case of Bangladesh’s company Niko and proposes that there is causation effect where the former leads to the latter. The theory has been proposed by analysing media publications over a 3-year period in respect of 2 blowouts in a particular year. The author also supplements his research with past literature and research on this which suggests a causation effect of media attention and public pressure on environmental disclosure strategies of a company. He uses annual reports and financial disclosures over the target 3 year period to study the effect of media attention with the argument that the time lag doesn’t have to be a longer span than 3 years to understand the correlation.
The author suggests that the research establishes a link between the disclosure initiatives and the paper clearly explains the methodology and material facts and evidences that help him strengthen this perspective. During the study they found a standalone report released by Niko to the local communities to address the issue even though they did not find any substantial disclosures in the annual report other than the financial implications as per the regulatory needs. The text is simple and easy to understand, the document has been structured well to understand the flow and thought process of the author.
In my opinion, the scope of the study is very narrow and the sample size is very small to apply or extrapolate the theory in other cases. There are various factors that affect company’s disclosure strategies which haven’t been explicitly called out although the author mentions legal considerations and regulatory requirements affecting financial disclosures. Also, the reaction of the peers or competitors and industry bodies can influence actions taken by the company. There could be differences in countries in terms of reaction to a particular incident and the way media functions or the role it plays in different regions. These haven’t been studied or mentioned in the research. The evidence is not extremely persuasive but the shortcomings and limitations of the evidence have been acknowledged by the author. The conclusions are hence limited.
Corporate Social Responsibility and the parameters of dialogue with vulnerable others (Robyn Mayes, 2012)
The author in the study establishes the importance of dialogue with the vulnerable in fulfilling corporate social responsibilities of corporates with a case in point of closure of Nickel mine in Western Australia. For the purpose of establishing the validity of the argument, the study uses primary research tool interview to understand the perception of the stakeholders.
The author has defined the scope very clearly and comprehensively and eliminated subjective biases by laying out the interpretations of ‘vulnerable’, ‘dialogue’ ‘corporate communications and engagement’ etc. Although the anecdotes from the interviews have been sparsely mentioned, the prominence of certain aspects such as social responsibility, morals, accountability in the conversation has been specified to give the essence of the perceptions of interviewees. The selective sample size is good to arrive at a general perception of the target community and helps substantiate the point the author is trying to make. The study contributes in creation of frameworks for corporate engagements and social responsibilities towards stakeholders and hence is useful.
Although semi-structured interview is a great tool for research to understand things at a grassroots level and get first-hand information, the flow of the interview is not devoid of bias of the interviewer which is a potential limitation of the study. The study considers one particular incident and repercussions of it on a particular section of stakeholders and hence limited in scope. Further, the author tries to push a shift in authority to enter into a dialogue from corporations to external enforcement bodies which may be a bit over-stretched goal. At the same time, the study is reliable in establishing guidance principles for corporate engagement with the vulnerable and frameworks for CSR activities.
Corporate Social Responsibilities: Alternative Perspectives about the need to legislate (Craig Diggan, 2014)
The research tries to review alternative positions on a widely-debated subject with greatly opposing views on having a flexible approach to Corporate Social Responsibility by making...
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