title: Sustainability Reporting in the Mining Industry

authors: Rae, Steven Michael

subjects: Sustainability

abstract: The purpose of this thesis was to examine the sustainability reporting of global mining companies. A review of prior literature indicated that sustainability has grown as a concept of interest in recent decades. Early studies concentrated on the characteristics of organisations producing sustainability reports and proffered different theories explaining why these reports are produced. While more recent research has focused on sustainability in the mining sector, no prior study had looked at the content of the sustainability reports of multiple mining organisations. This study, therefore,  provides greater understanding of the concepts and themes used within mining companies’ sustainability reports.
The study data drew on 104 electronically available sustainability reports collected from 32 mining companies covering the period 2010 to 2013. The mining companies were further classified according to their International Council on Mining and Minerals (ICMM) membership status. A content and thematic analysis was conducted using Leximancer software, a computer textual analysis program. The software analysed the data and produced concept findings, key themes, and concept maps from it.
The findings showed that the most frequently used concepts across all the sustainability reports were community, employees, local, production, and safety. At 27,727 interactions, the concept of community had the greatest number of interactions with other concepts. When the number of interactions was divided by the concept count, education was seen to have the highest number of interactions per concept appearance, followed by power, consumption, coal, and employment. The theme findings identified five theme groups: Community, Safety, Production, Water, and Employees. 
The summarised findings for the individual companies revealed variation across the different companies. The count percentage of the second most frequent concept, compared to the most frequent, ranged from 99% to 49%. The third most frequent concept’s average relevance score ranged from 97% 38%. When limiting the individual companies to their 5 most frequent concepts, 29 concepts were found to be in use across the 32 different companies. The most common concepts to rank in the top 5 overall were operations, ‘company name’, management, development, and mine.
The findings revealed 65 concepts across the 4 investigated years; 22 of these concepts were found to be common concepts. The study identified 17 top 10 ranked concepts for the 4-year period; however, 4 of these ranked consistently in the top 10. These were community, production, report, and local. The findings for the three different ICMM member categories revealed 19 concepts that ranked in the top 40 across all categories.  The concepts of community, employees, report, production, and local all had an average rank inside the top 10, regardless of ICMM membership. 
This study provided greater insight into the sustainability reporting practices of leading global mining companies. The findings revealed the concepts and themes that appeared within the sustainability reports. More research is needed to understand the different concepts and the reasons for the variability in reporting and reporting trends over time. This study has provided a preliminary review which can be used to better understand how mining companies are using sustainability reporting in light of the inherent paradox between sustainability and mining.

text: Sustainability Reporting in the Mining Industry The purpose of this thesis was to examine the sustainability reporting of global mining companies. A review of prior literature indicated that sustainability has grown as a concept of interest in recent decades. Early studies concentrated on the characteristics of organisations producing sustainability reports and proffered different theories explaining why these reports are produced. While more recent research has focused on sustainability in the mining sector, no prior study had looked at the content of the sustainability reports of multiple mining organisations. This study, therefore,  provides greater understanding of the concepts and themes used within mining companies’ sustainability reports.
The study data drew on 104 electronically available sustainability reports collected from 32 mining companies covering the period 2010 to 2013. The mining companies were further classified according to their International Council on Mining and Minerals (ICMM) membership status. A content and thematic analysis was conducted using Leximancer software, a computer textual analysis program. The software analysed the data and produced concept findings, key themes, and concept maps from it.
The findings showed that the most frequently used concepts across all the sustainability reports were community, employees, local, production, and safety. At 27,727 interactions, the concept of community had the greatest number of interactions with other concepts. When the number of interactions was divided by the concept count, education was seen to have the highest number of interactions per concept appearance, followed by power, consumption, coal, and employment. The theme findings identified five theme groups: Community, Safety, Production, Water, and Employees. 
The summarised findings for the individual companies revealed variation across the different companies. The count percentage of the second most frequent concept, compared to the most frequent, ranged from 99% to 49%. The third most frequent concept’s average relevance score ranged from 97% 38%. When limiting the individual companies to their 5 most frequent concepts, 29 concepts were found to be in use across the 32 different companies. The most common concepts to rank in the top 5 overall were operations, ‘company name’, management, development, and mine.
The findings revealed 65 concepts across the 4 investigated years; 22 of these concepts were found to be common concepts. The study identified 17 top 10 ranked concepts for the 4-year period; however, 4 of these ranked consistently in the top 10. These were community, production, report, and local. The findings for the three different ICMM member categories revealed 19 concepts that ranked in the top 40 across all categories.  The concepts of community, employees, report, production, and local all had an average rank inside the top 10, regardless of ICMM membership. 
This study provided greater insight into the sustainability reporting practices of leading global mining companies. The findings revealed the concepts and themes that appeared within the sustainability reports. More research is needed to understand the different concepts and the reasons for the variability in reporting and reporting trends over time. This study has provided a preliminary review which can be used to better understand how mining companies are using sustainability reporting in light of the inherent paradox between sustainability and mining.

year: 2016

title: The effects of early handling on dairy calves' physiological and behavioural responses to routine husbandry procedures

authors: Shepherd, Haley Marie

subjects: handling

abstract: The quality and quantity of human-animal interactions are crucial to animal welfare, productivity and management of livestock on-farm. Forty Holstein Friesian calves, from one week of age, were exposed to experimental handling for five minutes twice daily for five weeks. Calves were allocated to either positive or negative handling treatments (n=20 per treatment). Positive handling required handlers to slowly approach calves whilst using soft voices to encourage voluntary friendly interactions such as gentle pats. Negative handling consisted of continuous 45 second cycles of direct and indirect handling to discourage friendly interactions. Direct handling required handlers to use fast movements and harsh voices whilst forcibly moving animals around the pen. Indirect handling required handlers to stand in the pen, stare at the animals and tap a polyurethane pipe to make noise to maintain disturbance. Two other novel objects, a plastic bag and an empty water bottle filled with stones, were alternatively used each week to prevent habituation to the negative stimulus. At six weeks of age, all animals were subjected to three routine management procedures: restraint, ear tagging and disbudding, which occurred in stated order over a week period. There were no significant treatment differences between positive and negative groups for heart rate or heart rate variability (measured using Polar heart rate watches), eye temperature (measured using infrared thermography), respiration rates (measured visually), struggling behaviour, and plasma cortisol levels (measured during disbudding only). There were however within treatment differences in response to ear tagging, with an increase in heart rate (p less than 0.01) post-ear tagging, and in response to disbudding with an increase in heart rate (p less than 0.001), tail flicking(p less than 0.001) and cortisol levels (p less than 0.001). It was concluded that, under the conditions of this experiment, early handling does not affect the behavioural and physiological responses of calves to routine management procedures.
In a follow up trial at three months of age, the initial 40 animals and 20 additional three month old minimally handled animals (controls) were assessed for ease of handling using a force test, which ranked the time and effort required to move animals individually into a crush, and an exit speed test which recorded the animals speed exiting the crush, after two minutes of restraint. There were no significant differences between positive, negative and minimally handled treatment groups for heart rate, respiration rates or behaviour in the crush. However, the minimally handled group did appear to be more fearful of humans, with a significantly quicker entry time (p less than 0.05) into the crush than positive and negative treatment groups. There were no differences in entry scores for effort required to move the animals during the force test or for exit speeds. It was concluded that, under the conditions of the present experiment, initial early handling does not appear to cause long lasting effects on calves' behavioural and physiological responses to routine farm management procedures, but minimal contact with humans early in life may lead to a fear of humans later in life.

text: The effects of early handling on dairy calves' physiological and behavioural responses to routine husbandry procedures The quality and quantity of human-animal interactions are crucial to animal welfare, productivity and management of livestock on-farm. Forty Holstein Friesian calves, from one week of age, were exposed to experimental handling for five minutes twice daily for five weeks. Calves were allocated to either positive or negative handling treatments (n=20 per treatment). Positive handling required handlers to slowly approach calves whilst using soft voices to encourage voluntary friendly interactions such as gentle pats. Negative handling consisted of continuous 45 second cycles of direct and indirect handling to discourage friendly interactions. Direct handling required handlers to use fast movements and harsh voices whilst forcibly moving animals around the pen. Indirect handling required handlers to stand in the pen, stare at the animals and tap a polyurethane pipe to make noise to maintain disturbance. Two other novel objects, a plastic bag and an empty water bottle filled with stones, were alternatively used each week to prevent habituation to the negative stimulus. At six weeks of age, all animals were subjected to three routine management procedures: restraint, ear tagging and disbudding, which occurred in stated order over a week period. There were no significant treatment differences between positive and negative groups for heart rate or heart rate variability (measured using Polar heart rate watches), eye temperature (measured using infrared thermography), respiration rates (measured visually), struggling behaviour, and plasma cortisol levels (measured during disbudding only). There were however within treatment differences in response to ear tagging, with an increase in heart rate (p less than 0.01) post-ear tagging, and in response to disbudding with an increase in heart rate (p less than 0.001), tail flicking(p less than 0.001) and cortisol levels (p less than 0.001). It was concluded that, under the conditions of this experiment, early handling does not affect the behavioural and physiological responses of calves to routine management procedures.
In a follow up trial at three months of age, the initial 40 animals and 20 additional three month old minimally handled animals (controls) were assessed for ease of handling using a force test, which ranked the time and effort required to move animals individually into a crush, and an exit speed test which recorded the animals speed exiting the crush, after two minutes of restraint. There were no significant differences between positive, negative and minimally handled treatment groups for heart rate, respiration rates or behaviour in the crush. However, the minimally handled group did appear to be more fearful of humans, with a significantly quicker entry time (p less than 0.05) into the crush than positive and negative treatment groups. There were no differences in entry scores for effort required to move the animals during the force test or for exit speeds. It was concluded that, under the conditions of the present experiment, initial early handling does not appear to cause long lasting effects on calves' behavioural and physiological responses to routine farm management procedures, but minimal contact with humans early in life may lead to a fear of humans later in life.

year: 2010

title: Kirihaehae

authors: Maxwell, Te Kahautu

abstract: A haka composed about moko. My grand aunt Tangiwai took the moko chin tattoo so when the man from Tauranga, Kōraurau Te Kani that she had been betrothed to arrived at Whitianga Bay on the East Coast of the Bay of Plenty, he would readily recognise her his intended bride to be. This haka was composed for Te Kapa Haka o Tūtawake. This composition will be performed at the Mātaatua Kapa Haka regional Competition in Ruatoki 2016.

text: Kirihaehae A haka composed about moko. My grand aunt Tangiwai took the moko chin tattoo so when the man from Tauranga, Kōraurau Te Kani that she had been betrothed to arrived at Whitianga Bay on the East Coast of the Bay of Plenty, he would readily recognise her his intended bride to be. This haka was composed for Te Kapa Haka o Tūtawake. This composition will be performed at the Mātaatua Kapa Haka regional Competition in Ruatoki 2016.

year: 2013