recovery
Mike Henry talks ‘build back better’
Mike Henry, CEO, BHP
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n October 2020, Mike Henry, CEO, BHP spoke at the Financial Times Commodities Mining Summit, a global conference focussed on the topics that matter most in our industry.
Mike spoke passionately about the essential nature of mining, demonstrated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to ‘build back better’ to secure a different and better future. Read more in an excerpt from his speech…
"We’ve all had to overcome a few challenges this year. But, we’ve also been able to demonstrate once again what this industry is capable of and what we have to offer. It has been remarkable to see the way that companies were able to mobilise quickly to safeguard the health of our workforces, to support communities and our business partners and to keep the bulk of our operations running. Our ability to keep operating and generating employment, taxes, royalties and dividends in a time of crisis has been a positive differentiator relative to some other industries. Mining is essential. We know this. I’m not talking here just about the value we create for our direct stakeholders.
The resources we produce enable continued economic development and improvement in living standards around the world. In the end there is little choice about whether mining happens or not. There is though, choice about how it happens and who does it. In the face of events of the past year, countless lives have been disrupted and many around the world have been focused on simple survival and then on recovery. But at the same time there’s also been a growing public focus on the need to secure a different and better future. This is reflected in the ‘build back better’ concept. It captures two points: the world must return to growth to help improve
living standards and drive prosperity, but this growth needs to be clean, sustainable and of benefit to all. Our industry, and business more generally, has a role to play in that. In fact, the commodities we produce will be essential to the building of that better world. Addressing climate change is of course one part of building back better and at BHP we recently announced a new series of climate commitments and actions. One of the things that I spoke about when we announced these commitments was the fact that decarbonisation is actually going to require a whole lot more of many commodities. That will be the case for some of the other BBMC Yearbook 2020
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