The 2025 financial year proved to be a strong period of Indigenous social investment for BHP, recording $31.8 million contributed as part of its total national social expenditure of $102.2 million.
Detailed in the company’s Australian Indigenous Social Investment Report, the $31.8 million figure was divided into six sectors, with community, health and wellbeing being the largest focus with $9.4 million spent.
Following closely was Indigenous governance, economic development, and advocacy, with BHP spending $8.4 million.
Education and training came after, with the company contributing $5 million in this sector.
The sector of knowledge, languages and technologies followed, with $4.3 million spent.
According to BHP, as a company whose works span across the breadth of Australia, it has a “responsibility to listen, learn and walk” alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
“This is to enable our activities to support ongoing connection to their lands, waters, cultures, languages, and traditions,” it said.
“Indigenous people are critical partners and stakeholders to BHP.”
The mining giant also spent $2.8 million on arts and culture, followed by a $1.6 million figure on country, nature, and environment.
During this period, the Indigenous spend figure was bolstered by an additional $22.4 million in projects supporting Indigenous communities through its social value pillars.
BHP’s newly revised and co-designed Indigenous Cultural Respect Framework (ICRF) was developed in order to provide guidance and to encourage the workforce to “build cultural capability” with “genuine curiosity”.
It added that cultural learning and understanding are both central aspects to the ICRF, outlining the company’s core pillars of knowing, doing, being, providing its employees with “mixed modes” of formal and informal learning options.
The document also provided insight into BHP’s partner impacts; delivered through the Aboriginal Art Centre Hub in Western Australia (WA), the company represented 5000 artists through 24 art centres spanning 40 communities.
In its Indigenous Desert Alliance, BHP recorded 27 Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), 430 people present during the bi-annual conference (with 300 rangers), and contributing 40 per cent of Australia’s National Reserve System.
In May 2025, BHP hosted its second Australian Indigenous Social Investment Partner Symposium, bringing together the company’s representatives and its mentioned partners to “share and identify” opportunities for deeper collaboration.
BHP also recorded significant contributions to its country, nature and environment sectors, delivering 375 rehabilitated hectares and preventing 11 tonnes of sediment from reaching the Great Barrier Reef annually, through the Queensland Indigenous Conservation Project (QILCP).
Beyond the environmental impact, the QILCP employed 63 First Nations people, with 53 trained in environmental restoration roles.
The company’s outlook in FY26 is to establish an Indigenous Social Investment Community of Practice, and to improve “ways of working” internally to streamline Indigenous partnership approvals.
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