BHP : Taking on global challenges

What does it take to change the world for the better?

For the BHP Foundation, it's working collaboratively with others to take on some of the world's most critical sustainable development challenges including inequality, corruption, biodiversity loss and climate change.

That collaboration has culminated in the Foundation's 33 partners implementing a portfolio of projects across 43 countries.

It's all laid out in the Foundation's new publication. The booklet provides an overview of projects, tracks their progress and demonstrates outcomes.

And the impacts are transforming people's lives at scale.

Foundation Chairman Chip Goodyear said this is because the Foundation has taken an approach that's not 'business-as-usual'.

'Instead, the Foundation has supported projects with the potential to be game changers and we're starting to see the scale of impact our projects can have.'

Over the past 12 months Foundation-backed projects have:

• enabled Indigenous communities in northern Chile to harness the socio-economic potential of solar energy by establishing five community businesses and supporting the technical training of 115 teachers and 1,056 students;

• introduced corruption-busting 'Open Contracting' in Bogota, Colombia, enabling 700,000 school students to receive cheaper, higher quality school meals every day, generating savings of up to 15 per cent in government expenditure;

• established the world's largest Indigenous-led conservation land network spanning one-third of the Australian landmass, providing 1,599 FTE days of employment for Indigenous Rangers, expanding traditional fire management practices and controlling feral animals such as camels;

• exposed 58,000 Australian students to STEM career opportunities and better equipped 5,277 teachers to teach mathematics through professional development.

And that's making a real-world difference.