KPC - Partners in Collaborative Research

PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) was awarded ISO 14001 certification in 2004, which is an indicator of its general commitment to standards of environmental and social responsibility.

KPC staff and consultants have been using participatory action research methods in their work with local communities since 1995. The company has acknowledged a social responsibility to create empowered communities that can sustain their economic well-being after the eventual closure of the mine. The department responsible for these activities was recently renamed the Community Empowerment Department in order to reflect the emergence of new international approaches to the role of multinational companies in supporting the sustainable development of local communities. While the department's policy statement says that "KPC will exist in harmony with the local communities and will continue to support them whilst fostering the same attitudes of self-reliance, self-worth and responsibility it seeks inside the company", there has been a subsequent recognition of the need to incorporate a gender perspective into this vision, and that is why the company initially sought the advice of Dr Lahiri-Dutt in 2004.

The fact that a nationally owned mining company in Indonesia has chosen to make a substantial investment in this kind of action research is itself significant, because it appears to place this company some way ahead of the multinational mining companies whose community development programs and policies do not normally place the same degree of emphasis on gender relations or on the integration of social action research with corporate management practices. By placing gender firmly on the agenda of community development programs in the large-scale mining sector, this project is expected to yield research results which will have much wider application in formulating new models of best practice for the mining industry at national, regional and global scales. Mining companies, national governments, civil society organisations, and international financial institutions will be provided with the additional criteria and indicators for the definition of what counts as gender sensitivity, sustainable community development, and corporate social responsibility within the local context of large-scale mining operations. And in the specific local and national context of the KPC mine, the research will document the results of one mining company's attempt to be an innovator in these areas.