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: 4 mins
Last week we looked at Gold Fields and what good water disclosure looks like. In this edition, we pivot back to community engagement.
Greatland Resources does not have a standalone sustainability report yet. Its first one, prepared under GRI Standards, is due for FY26. For now, sustainability is a short overview inside the annual report. Some readers would call it thin but I think it matches exactly where the company is at, and I found the most useful community disclosure where sustainability readers rarely roam: the risk section. For me, this is exactly the reason we’re moving towards sustainability reports being integrated into the annual report, instead of being stand alone documents.
So this week's question: where do you look to find out what a company really thinks about the communities within which it operates?
— Bronwyn
Greatland Resources
Source: 2025 Annual Report (published September 2025) · Sustainability overview pp.30-33 · Risk disclosures pp.22-24 · Inaugural GRI sustainability report committed for FY26
Greatland is a gold and copper producer in the Paterson region of Western Australia. In December 2024 it acquired the Telfer mine and the remaining 70 percent of the Havieron project from Newmont, and in June 2025 it listed on the ASX. The company operates on Martu country under an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, with Jamukurnu-Yapalikurnu Aboriginal Corporation (JYAC) the registered native title body corporate for the Martu people. FY25 was its first year as an operator.
Passage 1: The section no one reads
“Where Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs) or land access agreements have been entered into with Native Title holders, there remains a risk that the relevant Native Title holders (or Aboriginal corporations representing them) do not have the capacity to organise, or required personnel to participate in, heritage surveys which are an important precursor to timely completion of on-ground exploration activities and certain Havieron activities by the Group."
Sustainability pages are written to describe relationships. Risk sections are written to satisfy directors' duties relating to business variables such as budgets, timelines, social impact etc, and to inform shareholders and others what might change and why. That obligation produces a different kind of narrative. Here, community relationships are presented as what they are to the business: material dependencies. This sentence is a disclosure I have not seen put this plainly before.
It is not a statement about ability. Heritage surveys need Traditional Owners on country and corporations to organise them, and those corporations carry statutory functions and heavy agreement workloads on funding that has never matched what the industry asks of them. When a project schedule depends on an under-resourced institution, that is a resourcing problem across the whole sector.
Greatland did not create it either. It did something more useful than most: it wrote the dependency down, in a report that elsewhere shows the company investing in the relationship, including ILUA compliance protocols improved in consultation with Jamukurnu-Yapalikurnu Aboriginal Corporation (JYAC), which gives this disclosure a practical consequence.
If survey execution sits on your critical path, resourcing and capability support for Native Title holders could be seen as an investment in schedule protection.
Plain english: Project timelines across the sector depend on Native Title corporations that are often chronically under resourced due to the nature of the current system. The practical response for a proponent is to try to support the capacity you depend on. I know that comes with its challenges too of course.
Passage 2: Cost of capital reduced
“$901k invested in community programs" "37% increase in number of Martu working at Telfer since December 2024”
The general rule of thumb with regard to community and social investment in this industry is that an operating miner typically invests around one percent of pre tax profit into community programs each year. It’s very subjective and not always possible but that’s my understanding.
If you look at Greatland’s contribution during its reporting period, the company’s FY25 profit before tax was $441.9 million, so the rule would suggest a program of roughly $4.4 million. However, put into context of where the company sits in its overall evolution, they are in year one of ownership, mid transformation and first materiality assessment just completed.
Second, and equally important is the community programs line only captures what a company chooses to give, which is not always the complete picture. Other examples of community support initiatives often sit elsewhere in the report, such as compensation under the ILUA and land access agreements, a 37 percent rise in Martu people working at Telfer since the acquisition, Martu business participation, including a contractor group delivering weed management and an 18 month partnership with Ngurra Kujungka on Martu health and wellbeing.
I also noticed that Greatland provides fresh fruit and vegetables to Martu communities and schools. It reads as a minor line, but in remote Western Desert communities, where fresh food is hard to get and expensive, it is a practical, regular form of presence. At this stage of a company's life, contributions like that are thoughtful and appropriate, and sometimes they count for more than the dollar figure attached to them.
Plain english: The way we tell the story in reporting is easily as important as the information itself. Judging only the headline number in the report doesn’t always give you the full picture.
The Frame
The answer to the question, where do you look? The risk section, and then check it against the sustainability pages. The test I apply to any report is whether the two descriptions match. In Greatland's report they do, which is to the company's credit.
Two takeaways:
Read the risk section. Directors' duties make it the most candid writing in any annual report. Community, heritage and land access disclosures there tell you what the company depends on. It’s why sustainability reporting is moving towards being included in the annual report where the information can algin better.
Contribution is a system of channels, not a line item. Compensation, employment, procurement, partnerships, capacity support for the corporations you work with, and chosen giving programs each move value differently. The right level shifts with stage. At exploration it is often about time, presence and in kind support, with little or no cash transfer. Through construction, the provision of training, employment and business opportunities are appropriate and sometimes required by lenders. In production: around one percent of pre tax profit, with half to two percent of earnings the range I see in disclosures. If you want one number for total contribution, you will have to assemble it yourself.
Glossary
ILUA (Indigenous Land Use Agreement). A voluntary agreement under the Native Title Act between native title parties and others about the use of land and the benefits provided in return. ILUA payments are compensation and benefit sharing under agreement, not philanthropy.
PBC / RNTBC. Prescribed body corporate, or registered native title body corporate: the corporation that holds or manages native title on behalf of the holders, with statutory functions under the Native Title Act. JYAC performs this role for the Martu people.
Community investment. Voluntary spending on community programs, chosen by the company, distinct from compensation and benefits owed under agreements. The two are often conflated.