This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Mining giant BHP is facing renewed pressure to abandon its membership of the Minerals Council of Australia after it was revealed the lobby group is directly involved in an upcoming multimillion-dollar pro-coal advertising blitz.

Documents seen by the Guardian show Coal21 – an organisation created to research low-emissions technology and shares its chief executive with the Minerals Council – is planning a cross-media advertising campaign to enhance “the public standing and reputation of Australia’s coal industry”.

A source familiar with the advertising pitch said Coal21 planned to spend up to $4.5m on a campaign to “invoke national pride” in coal. The two-page “request for proposal” sent to advertising agencies does not mention carbon capture and storage.

BHP could quit Minerals Council after clashes over climate policy Read more

It follows earlier advertising campaigns (under the historic name ACA Low Emissions Technologies Ltd) that public documents show cost $8m between 2015-16 and 2017-18.

The Minerals Council says it is a separate organisation to Coal21. The source familiar with the pitch said the person who contacted agencies about the current advertising contract was a Minerals Council staff member.

Shareholder activists and analysts said it showed the two groups were effectively the same organisation. The Coal21 chief executive, Mark McCallum, is also the Minerals Council’s general manager of climate and energy.

They said it further highlighted the gulf between BHP and the Minerals Council in the wake of the company’s call for drastic action to address the climate crisis.

In what has been described as a landmark speech the BHP chief executive, Andrew Mackenzie, last month declared global heating was indisputable and committed the company to cutting carbon dioxide, including by linking executive pay to emissions reduction.

BHP is again reviewing its membership of the Minerals Council following disagreements over climate policy. Some of the tension has been over Coal21, which operates on a voluntary levy paid by coal companies through a deduction on state mining royalties.

Dan Gocher, from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, said the advertising plans showed Coal21 was a pro-coal front that used a promise to develop carbon capture and storage as a cover. He said BHP’s commitments, including to ensuring that its industry associations advocated in a technology-neutral way, were fundamentally at odds with the Minerals Council and Coal21.

“Anything less than suspension of these memberships will show that BHP cannot be trusted on climate,” he said.

Simon Holmes à Court, a senior adviser at the University of Melbourne’s climate and energy college, said: “There may be a separate legal structure, but the Minerals Council is effectively Coal21. BHP can’t be walking both sides of the street, advocating action on climate change while funding pro-coal propaganda.”

Through a spokesperson, BHP confirmed it was a member of Coal21. “Its primary role is to undertake research and development into low-emissions coal technologies,” the spokesperson said.

The company said it believed there was great potential for technology to reduce the impacts and risk of global heating and it was investing in a range of carbon dioxide removal measures, including carbon capture and storage, direct air capture and planting forests.

A Minerals Council spokesman said it was a separate organisation to Coal21, with a separate board and directors. He said the council supported participation in the Paris climate agreement and Australian mining businesses were working together “to make our contribution to lower emissions”. The spokesman said Mark McCallum was not available to be interviewed.

In a post on social media site LinkedIn, Coal21 said it was committed to investing $550m “for research and deployment of carbon reduction technologies” including carbon capture, abatement of fugitive emissions during mining and hydrogen. It said Coal21 was developing a communications strategy “to present this important R&D story to Australia”.

“Australians have told us that they want to hear more about how the coal industry is working to reduce emissions in Australia,” the post said.

Coal21 was established in 2006 as a fund for research into carbon capture and storage, but the levy was suspended in 2012 having raised only a fraction of that sum. The organisation’s constitution was changed in 2013 to allow it to also promote “the economic and social benefits of the coal industry”.

Documents lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission indicate 20% of Coal21 spending in 2017-18 was on political advertising.

BHP’s latest review of its industry group memberships follows an earlier round announced in December 2017 that led to the company leaving the World Coal Association.

In his speech, Mackenzie said the company would spend US$400m on developing technologies to reduce emissions from its own operations and the “scope 3” emissions that result downstream from the companies that buy its resources, limit its 2022 pollution at 2017 levels, have net-zero emissions by 2050 and strengthen the link between emissions performance and executive pay from 2021.