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New survey puts diggers and drillers' community relations work under the spotlight

Published: 07:30 21 Sep 2014 BST

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A new survey has looked at how effective mining and oil companies are at reporting their CSR, or community social relations work.

Such corporate work has grown considerably in significance over the last decade and is now a must for companies to gain any standing.

It is particularly pertinent for the so-called "extractive" firms because of the potentially disruptive nature of their operations, which can affect thousands of people as landscapes are changed and settlements impacted upon.

Such companies are often considered most in need of implementing best practice CSR.

The CSR21 survey was carried out over nine months by looking at the various reports from the companies, and provides a ranking for firms, which are on both London's AIM and the main board (LSE).

Notably, of the 290 companies surveyed, just over one third reported any kind of CSR project or programme, while only 37 companies published CSR or sustainability reports.

Just five firms updated their community relations work more than annually, while only 57 companies disclosed how much they were spending on community relations.

Only 71 companies had carried out a community survey and/or had explicitly appointed someone in a community liaison position.

The study used a basic nine point binary scoring system, where a point is earned if a firm has disclosed a key indicator, e.g. demonstrated a CSR project.

On the LSE, the top ranked company was African Barrick Gold (LON:ABG), with eight points, while Anglo American (LON:AAL), Tullow Oil (LON:TLW), BP (LON:BP.), Petra Diamonds (LON:PDL) and Premier Oil (LON:PMO), all got a score of seven.

Meanwhile, on AIM, tanzanite miner Richland Resources (LON:RLD) and Ncondezi Energy (LON:NCCL) got six points, while iGas Energy (LON:IGAS) and Central Asia Metals (LON:CAML) received five points.

Companies in Australia had the best average score at 2.89, while South Africa as a region was second, with an average score of 2.72.

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