While absolute results remain low overall, Vedanta Resources shows one of the five stronger results in Working Conditions, in part due to its comprehensive disclosure of the incidence of fatalities and serious injuries, for both employees and contract workers, and safety incidents.

Vedanta Resources ranks 11th among the 38 companies on its mine-site-level results, though with an average score of only 17% in the mine-site assessment.

In other areas of the company-wide assessment, Vedanta Resources’ results stem largely from its commitments (to prevent bribery and corruption, respect human rights, and manage its environmental impacts systematically), as well as its disclosure of information on the location and safety of its tailings storage facilities.

As an example of Vedanta Resources’ continuous improvement efforts since the RMI Report 2018, the company has disclosed more information relating to its performance on improving its gender balance at board and senior management levels.

However, in one thematic area (Community Wellbeing), Vedanta Resources’ results are below the average achieved across all 38 companies and more generally, the company’s overall results are limited by a lack of evidence of action on a number of issues. For example, the company shows no evidence of tracking the effectiveness of its community and worker grievance mechanisms, ensuring its operations assess and address their impacts on land use and land access by affected communities, and plan for the management of post-closure transition for communities.

Moreover, Vedanta Resources’ results in the mine-site assessment are very variable. While one of its five assessed mine sites shows one of the six stronger results among the 180 sites assessed (with its score of 37%), the results of two of the company’s other assessed mine sites are markedly weaker. Neither of these mine sites show any relevant evidence on eight of the ten issues covered: local procurement, post-closure planning, community grievances, air quality, water quality and quantity, and emergency preparedness.