Hey there, welcome to The Forward! I’m Bronwyn, I spent many years leading social performance and community relations in mining, including as Head of Social Performance at Rio Tinto. Now I run Cantilever, where I advise mining and resources companies on sustainability strategy and complex stakeholder engagement.
If you want to talk about your strategy, get in touch with me here.
Read time: 3 mins
Last week we looked at Genesis Minerals and how its M&A activity has led to challenges with report currency. This week we turn to Anglo American, another company currently deep in structural change, divesting its last Queensland steelmaking coal assets (the Grosvenor, Moranbah North, Capcoal and Dawson package), and merging with Teck Resources to form Anglo Teck, a global critical minerals champion built for a copper-hungry world.
I’m not spending this issue on the merger mechanics, however. Instead, this week I felt it was time to talk about an elephant standing in the corner. The reports up for discussion are Anglo’s Integrated Annual Report, and its Sustainability-related Disclosure Supplement. The language up for discussion is how Anglo, like plenty of others in the sector, talk about the people who live in the surrounding areas where it mines.
— Bronwyn
Anglo American
Source documents: Integrated Annual Report 2025 (395pp); Sustainability-related Disclosure Supplement 2025 (165pp) · Published 2 March 2026 · Frameworks cited - GRI (general format), TCFD, TNFD, ICMM Mining Principles, UK Companies Act s414CB; ISSB referenced as a future requirement.
Anglo's approach to community relations sits inside what it calls the Social Way, a formal framework governing engagement, grievance handling and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) across its operations. It is one of the more developed programmes of its kind in the sector, which is why it’s worth a closer look.
Passage 1: The language of ‘our communities’
“We aim to build trust and mutual understanding with our communities, based on their participation and oversight of our social performance work"
Of the 13 companies profiled across 14 issues of The Forward, 10 use the exact phrase "our communities" in their reporting or public communications. All 13 - 100% - use possessive community language of some kind: "our host communities", "our local communities", "our Traditional Owners".
In social performance, language is extremely important. And it's worth noticing that the possessive only ever runs one way. Companies write "our communities". No community writes "our mining company."
Plain english: Mining companies call them "our communities". No community calls it "our mining company". When the possessive only runs one way, it isn't affection - it's position.
When I was researching this week's issue of The Forward, I spent some time on Anglo's Sustainability Strategy site. There's a video there with leaders from across the business talking about what the strategy means to them.
If you aspire to develop and operate a responsible and respectful company/project, it’s really worth watching, and I want to commend the team behind it. https://www.angloamerican.com/sustainability-strategy
The Frame
The interesting thing about Anglo's use of the term ‘our communities’, it's how invisible this kind of language error is even inside a genuinely well-run programme. Community language doesn't get caught by a materiality assessment, a GISTM (Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management) audit or a Community and Social Investment spend review, because none of those processes are built to catch it.
It's worth consideration for any reporting team, not just Anglo's. If a programme this mature and this well-resourced can still let a possessive slip through, the gap isn't about effort or intent, it's about process. Nobody runs a dedicated language pass on community-facing terminology before publication. That's an easy, cheap fix once it's named as a distinct step, rather than assumed to be someone else's job.
Run a dedicated possessive-language check on community-facing terms as a discrete step in sign-off, separate from the general proofread.
Assign explicit ownership of community-language consistency. It often falls between materiality, communications and legal, and by default it belongs to no one.
Glossary
Terms used this week
Host community. Industry-standard term for people living in areas where a company operates, favoured because it does not imply ownership. It is Anglo American's consistent house term across both 2025 reports; however, "our communities" appears four times, all in the Supplement.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). An international principle giving communities, particularly Indigenous Peoples, the right to give or withhold consent to a project affecting their land, given freely, ahead of time, and based on full information. Anglo's FPIC commitments are written into policy rather than left implied, part of what makes its social performance programme so well structured.
IFRS S1 & S2. The global baseline sustainability-related and climate-related financial disclosure standards issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) in 2023, intended to be the common reference point for jurisdictions building their own mandatory regimes, including Australia's ASRS.
GRI 2-23 (Policy Commitments). The GRI Universal Standards disclosure requiring companies to describe their policy commitments to responsible business conduct, including human rights and community engagement. It's the specific disclosure this week's featured quote sits under, in Anglo's Sustainability-related Disclosure Supplement, p.29.
Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP). A structured plan setting out how a company identifies, engages and manages relationships with the people and groups affected by or interested in a project. Getting the language right in a SEP e.g., our community vs host community, is the kind of detail that gets missed without a proper review.