Our ambition  

Our vision is to contribute towards global efforts to halt and reverse nature loss and collective goals on nature and climate change to support business resilience and social value.¹

Our 2030 Healthy environment goal is to create nature-positive² outcomes by having at least 30 per cent of the land and water we steward³ under conservation, restoration or regenerative practices. In doing so we focus on areas of highest ecosystem value both within and outside our own operational footprint, in partnership with Indigenous peoples and local communities. 

Our approach and position  

We recognise that to help enable the energy transition, support a growing population that is becoming increasingly urbanised, and to improve standards of living, minerals production will need to increase. It is essential this production meets high standards of environmental stewardship.

We also recognise our performance in managing environmental impacts to the land, water and air where we operate may impact Indigenous peoples and local communities.

We seek to avoid or minimise adverse environmental impacts through every stage of our operational activities and acknowledge our role in contributing more broadly to the resilience and productivity of the natural environment. This is in line with Our Values, Our Code of Conduct, key BHP position statements (e.g. the Water Stewardship Position Statement) and Group-wide standards (e.g. Environmental Global Standard and Climate Change Global Standard). 

Our Group-wide approach to environmental management is set out in the Environment Global Standard, which is applicable to BHP’s operated assets. The Standard details our mandatory minimum performance requirements to deliver on our environmental-related commitments, which include those in the Our environmental-related commitments table below, and manage our environmental risks, using management systems aligned to ISO14001. These standards require us to take an integrated, risk-based approach to managing any actual or reasonably foreseeable impacts (direct, indirect and cumulative) and dependencies on biodiversity, land, water and air. We establish and implement monitoring and review practices designed to ensure continued management of environment-related risk within our risk appetite through business planning and project evaluation cycles. Our Environment Global Standard (alongside our Climate Change Global Standard) also helps support the achievement of our goals, targets and commitments.

More specifically, our approach to environmental management is based on and influenced by:

• the identification, assessment and management of risks (threats and opportunities, impacts and dependencies) across all phases of our operational life cycle, including exploration, development, operation, closure and post-closure. BHP applies a Group-wide Risk Framework to identify and manage risks, including environmental risks
• engagement with internal and external stakeholders to ensure we take their perspectives and knowledge into account in our decision-making 
• the realms of nature (land, oceans, freshwater and atmosphere) that we may impact or depend on
• the five key drivers of nature loss (changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution, invasive species), as outlined by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
• the extent and nature of our planned activities and optimising our activities to seek to minimise or prevent adverse impact and maximise contribution to social value
• societal risks, such as habitat loss and pollution
  
   

We use our Environmental Management System (EMS) to implement our approach to environmental management, as well as drive continuous improvement in our environmental performance. The Environment Global Standard mandates the use of an EMS that aligns with the global environmental management framework ISO 14001. We seek to continually refine our internal decision-making, risk management and reporting systems and processes to strengthen the environmental performance of our operations, and to manage risks (threats and opportunities) from our impacts and dependencies on nature. 

We also set targets and goals to guide our stewardship of nature, including contributing to global efforts to halt and reverse nature loss through our 2030 Healthy environment goal, helping to address the water challenges shared by BHP and other stakeholders in the regions where we operate through our context-based water targets, and supporting efforts to mitigate climate change through our greenhouse gas emissions targets and goals. Through our Group-level biodiversity strategy, Water Stewardship Position Statement and Climate Transition Action Plan 2024 (subject to updates of certain aspects of our assumptions and plans in the BHP Annual Report 2025, Operating and Financial Review 9.8 – Climate change), we outline our vision, strategies and focus areas to support action on these global challenges. 

Beyond our BHP footprint, we make voluntary contributions in support of environmental resilience across the regions where we operate through social investment, on-ground action and thought-leadership. Examples are provided in the case studies below, and those on the Water webpage and Biodiversity and land webpage.

Specific information about our water, climate and biodiversity approach and position can be found at the Water webpage, Biodiversity and land webpage and Climate change webpages. For more information on BHP’s 2030 goals, refer to the BHP Annual Report 2025, Operating and Financial Review 9.4 – 2030 goals. For more information on BHP’s Risk Framework refer to the BHP Annual Report 2025, Operating and Financial Review 7 – How we manage risk and Sustainability-related Risk Management webpage. 

Mitigation hierarchy

Our primary approach to preventing or minimising our potential adverse impacts to biodiversity and ecosystems within our operational footprint is to apply the mitigation hierarchy (avoid, minimise, rehabilitate and/or apply compensatory actions). This approach allows us to, if necessary, minimise and rehabilitate any unavoidable impacts to biodiversity and ecosystems. If actual or reasonably foreseeable residual impacts remain to high conservation value biodiversity and/or ecosystems after application of the first three priorities of the mitigation hierarchy, we apply compensatory actions by seeking conservation gains of the same value to achieve no-net-loss to biodiversity overall.

As detailed in the Environment Global Standard, our operated assets are required to identify and assess environment-related risks (threats and opportunities) and put controls and plans in place to manage these risks, in accordance with BHP’s Risk Framework. This includes the application of our frameworks, policies and processes, including governance, assurance and risk management.  

Our Healthy environment goal

We have set and are now focusing on the steps required to achieve our 2030 Healthy environment goal to contribute towards global efforts to halt and reverse nature loss.

Our 2030 Healthy environment goal is to create nature-positive² outcomes by having at least 30 per cent of the land and water we steward³ under conservation, restoration or regenerative practices. In doing so we focus on areas of highest ecosystem value both within and outside our own operational footprint, in partnership with Indigenous peoples and local communities. We focus our activities in support of achieving this goal on the large areas of non-operational land we steward, as this land offers an opportunity for us to apply conservation, restoration or regenerative practices at a larger scale. 

The key metrics to track progress on delivery of the 2030 Healthy environment goal are the: 

• area under nature-positive management practices⁴  
• number of our operated assets with a natural capital account⁵

A breakdown of area under conservation, restoration or regenerative management practice can be found in the BHP ESG Standards and Databook 2025. 

Our 2030 Healthy environment goal is supported by successive short-term milestones. We completed our initial FY2023 short-term milestones to undertake preliminary global mapping of important biodiversity and/or ecosystems (IBE) for operated assets in Minerals Australia and Minerals Americas, and to publish context-based water targets (CBWTs). More information can be found at our Biodiversity and land webpage, our IBE mapping case study, and our Shared water challenges webpage.  

For the FY2024 short-term milestone, we developed a BHP Healthy environment goal roadmap which identifies opportunity areas where conservation, restoration and/or regenerative practices could be applied. Projects will be progressively selected from the BHP Healthy environment goal roadmap, planned and executed, to enable achievement of our goal. The roadmap was developed using a targeted version of the LEAP approach – an integrated approach developed by the TNFD to help organisations identify and assess nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. We used this approach to prioritise non-operational areas for conservation, restoration and/or regenerative activity on the basis of highest ecosystem value. This was done as follows:   

• Locate your interface with nature: We mapped our land owned/managed/leased and our interface with sensitive locations using global datasets in our IBE layer.
• Evaluate your dependencies and impacts on nature: We identified environmental assets and ecosystem services using global datasets on natural and modified habitats, nature’s contribution to people and above/below ground biomass in our IBE layer. 
• Assess your nature-related risks and opportunities: We prioritise opportunities for conservation, restoration and/or regenerative activity on the basis of highest ecosystem value as determined in our IBE layer. We consider risk to project permanence by prioritising areas outside of mining leases – also recognising that these non-operational areas present the greatest opportunities in terms of scale.
• Prepare to respond to and report on material nature-related issues: We have key metrics and annual milestones to track progress towards delivery of our Healthy environment goal and plan to consider effectiveness through a set of nature-related metrics that have been peer reviewed by CSIRO. For information on work we are undertaking to value, measure and monitor natural capital, including as part of projects under our Healthy environment goal, refer to the Biodiversity and land webpage.

Key progress against our Healthy environment goal is outlined below. For more information on our FY2025 progress on our natural capital metrics framework refer to our Biodiversity and land webpage and our natural capital accounting case study.

We are continuing to select projects from our BHP Healthy environment goal roadmap for detailed execution planning and seeking opportunities to design and advance projects in partnerships with Indigenous peoples. We are also monitoring the evolving external nature landscape, including developments in nature frameworks, standards and methodologies and in definition of the global nature ambition. We are exploring ways to respond to these emerging insights in our approach to our Healthy environment goal.

Footnotes

^{1 Such as relevant United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and international agreements such as the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
2 Nature-positive is defined by the TNFD Glossary version 1.0 as ‘A high-level goal and concept describing a future state of nature (e.g. biodiversity, ecosystem services and natural capital) which is greater than the current state’. We understand it to include land and water management practices that halt and reverse nature loss – that is, supporting healthy, functioning ecosystems. We are monitoring the evolving external nature landscape, including developments in nature frameworks, standards and methodologies and in definition of the global nature ambition. 
3 Excluding areas we hold under greenfield exploration licences (or equivalent tenements), which are outside the area of influence of our existing mine operations. 30 per cent will be calculated based on the areas of land and water that we steward at the end of FY2030. For more information refer to the BHP ESG Standards and Databook 2025. 
4 Area under stewardship that has a formal management plan that includes conservation, restoration or regenerative practices. For more information refer to the BHP ESG Standards and Databook 2025.
5 Natural capital accounts are a way to measure the amount, condition and value of environmental assets in a given area. They help describe changes in ecosystems and how these impact wellbeing and economies.}

Governance, engagement, disclosure and performance

Risk

Our processes to identify, assess and manage environment-related risks are undertaken in line with BHP’s Risk Framework. For details refer to the BHP Annual Report 2025, Operating and Financial Review 7 – How we manage risk.

For information on water-related risks refer to the Water webpage. 

Case studies