Women made up 65% of Rio Tinto’s 2025 graduate intake.

1. What Rio Tinto claims

This request is addressed to Simon Trott, Rio Tinto’s Chief Executive.

Rio Tinto’s Inclusion and Diversity Policy, effective 7 January 2025, commits to equal, inclusive and respectful treatment of candidates during recruitment and procedures free from bias and discrimination. Its policy includes sex among the grounds covered by its prohibition on discrimination. Inclusion and Diversity Policy, pp. 2–3.

Alongside those commitments, its 2025 Annual Report sets out an aim for 50% women in graduate intake. It reports welcoming 140 graduates across eight countries, with 65% women. These are global figures, not an Australian intake breakdown. Annual Report, printed pp. 35 and 39.

The report also states that achievement of measurable gender diversity objectives for senior leadership and graduate intake contributes to senior executives’ variable remuneration. Annual Report, printed p. 114.

The question for Australian recruitment is direct: does an applicant’s sex, or progress towards a gender target, change eligibility, assessment criteria, scoring, ranking, tie-breaks, offers or allocation of places?

Rio should answer that question for each stage and explain how the operating rules match its public recruitment commitments.

2. What the maths says

Graduate intake

65% − 50% = 15 percentage points above the aim.

Expressed per 100 places, the reported composition is 65 women and 35 people outside that category, compared with 50 women at the stated aim. Applied to the reported intake of 140, 140 × 65% = approximately 91 women, leaving approximately 49 others. These headcounts are inferred from the reported percentage and are subject to its rounding; they are not a separately published sex breakdown.

An intake share is not an applicant’s selection probability. To examine Australian applicants’ actual opportunities, Rio should publish the denominators:

Men’s selection rate = men selected ÷ eligible male candidates considered.

Women’s selection rate = women selected ÷ eligible female candidates considered.

Calculate these rates for comparable roles, disciplines, locations and intake periods, alongside the criteria applied and progression through each selection stage. Applicant qualifications, assessment results, offers and acceptances are needed to examine how the final intake was produced. Rio must publish its Australian applicant and selection data so men can see how the target affects their opportunities.

The remuneration calculation

Rio’s 2025 Group short-term incentive scorecard gives its gender diversity measure a 5% weighting. The result earned 30% of the maximum for that measure, producing a 1.5 percentage-point contribution to the Group scorecard before overall adjustments:

5% × 30% = 1.5%.

This is a scorecard contribution, not 1.5% of salary. The measure assessed women’s representation across the organisation, with a reported result of 26.3%, excluding Arcadium. It is distinct from the 50% graduate intake aim. Annual Report, printed pp. 132–133.

The report separately connects senior-leadership and graduate-intake gender objectives to executive variable remuneration. Rio should explain the precise measures, weightings and payment consequences behind that statement, including how they relate to the published Group scorecard. Annual Report, printed p. 114.

The financial incentive is documented. Rio needs to explain whether, and how, that incentive or the underlying gender targets affect the opportunities available to male applicants. It should publish the rules and outcomes needed to answer that question.

3. What we believe

Men should not have to search a remuneration report to discover whether a recruitment target could affect their application.

Rio publishes an intended sex composition for graduate intake, reports an outcome above that aim and connects gender objectives to executive remuneration. Atlas believes those facts warrant direct scrutiny of the instructions and incentives behind recruitment decisions.

The decisive issue is how the target operates. Are the same standards applied to comparable candidates? Can target progress change who is shortlisted or offered a place? Does sex decide a tie-break or the allocation of a remaining position? Rio should answer with the operating rules and outcomes.

A graduate opportunity can shape later experience, earnings and access to advancement. Where sex changes access to that first opportunity, the consequences can extend beyond a single recruitment round.

A fairness commitment must be supported by a process applicants can understand and evidence they can examine.

4. What we want: upfront disclosure

Rio should state the rules in each affected graduate advertisement and application portal before applicants submit information or complete assessments.

Where women receive preference, say plainly:

Women receive preference in this selection process.

Then explain the affected stages, criteria and allocation rules. Where men are ineligible, say plainly:

Men are not eligible to apply.

These are proposed notices for any process where those conditions apply. Rio should identify which, if any, of its Australian opportunities use such rules and disclose the precise treatment involved.

If Rio maintains that sex and target progress do not change eligibility, scoring, ranking, tie-breaks, offers or place allocation, publish that position alongside the rules and data supporting it.

Applicants should be able to obtain a written answer to this question:

Does my sex, or progress towards a gender target, affect any stage of this graduate selection process? Please identify each affected stage, explain the rule and provide the criteria and justification relied upon.

The information belongs beside the opportunity, before a man spends time applying.

5. Changes Atlas demands from Rio Tinto

Atlas calls on Rio to provide equal access to graduate opportunities and address practices that disadvantage comparable male candidates.

We call on Rio to:

1. Apply consistent assessment standards. Review eligibility, scoring, ranking, tie-breaks and offer decisions, and address sex-based differences that produce unequal treatment.
2. Examine the incentives behind recruitment. Test whether gender targets or remuneration consequences influence selection decisions and correct incentives that encourage unequal treatment.
3. Publish clear applicant notices. Replace general assurances with direct explanations of the rules people actually face.
4. Monitor comparable outcomes. Examine stage-by-stage selection rates and assessment results by sex, discipline and location, and investigate differences in treatment.
5. Explain what it is willing to change. Publish the findings of that review, the improvements proposed and a timetable for action.

Disclosure alone does not make unequal treatment fair. It enables applicants to understand the rules. Where those rules disadvantage men, Atlas calls on Rio to address the treatment itself.

6. What the law says and how Rio Tinto explains compliance

For Australian employment, section 14 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) addresses discrimination in recruitment, employment conditions, promotion, training and other benefits. Section 7D provides for special measures intended to achieve substantive equality and limits their operation once their purpose has been achieved. Sex Discrimination Act, sections 7D and 14.

For any sex-specific recruitment practice, Rio should identify the employing entity, the applicable federal and state or territory law, and the precise provision relied upon. If it relies on an exception, exemption or special measure, publish:

1. The recruitment practice it covers and the inequality it is intended to address.
2. The evidence supporting its application to that applicant pool and opportunity.
3. The differences in eligibility, assessment or selection it permits.
4. How the measure is reviewed and when it will end or change.
5. What applicants are told before participating.

Equal opportunity and legal compliance are separate questions. If sex changes access to a graduate position, Rio should explain how that treatment is consistent with its recruitment commitments. If it relies on a legal provision, it should identify that provision and explain how its requirements are met. A general assurance of compliance does not answer the fairness question.

7. What numbers and evidence we ask Rio Tinto to publish

Atlas asks Rio to publish a privacy-protected record covering:

1. Target scope: the intake periods, countries, employing entities and disciplines covered by the 50% aim; any local targets; and whether targets carry consequences for decision-makers.
2. Australian selection rules: how sex and target progress enter sourcing, eligibility, screening, assessment, scoring, ranking, tie-breaks, offers and allocation of places. Include instructions, approval requirements and any changes made during a recruitment round.
3. Candidate-stage data: applicants, eligible candidates, assessments, shortlists, offers and acceptances by sex for comparable roles and locations, with the assessment criteria and relevant results. Explain how outreach and applicant sources affected the pool.
4. Global and Australian intake figures: the headcounts behind the reported 65%, the treatment of unreported categories and rounding, and the Australian breakdown.
5. Remuneration arrangements: the specific senior-leadership and graduate-intake objectives linked to variable remuneration, their weightings, thresholds, payment consequences and relationship to the Group gender diversity scorecard.
6. Checks and corrective action: audits or monitoring of whether comparable applicants face different rules, and the action taken where unequal treatment is identified.
7. Legal basis and disclosure record: the provisions relied upon, supporting evidence, review arrangements and the notices applicants saw before applying.

Rio should confirm what information it holds or can measure. Published rules and comparable candidate data would allow Atlas to test the relationship between the targets, incentives and treatment of men, and revise its assessment where warranted.

Rio Tinto can answer this case with evidence.

If Rio maintains that its gender targets, remuneration incentives and the practices used to pursue them do not disadvantage men, it should publish the relevant candidate, selection and remuneration data and explain how those measures operate in practice.

A statement of good intentions, a commitment to equality or an assurance of legal compliance does not answer the practical question.

The question is whether being male affects access to opportunity.

If the answer is no, the data should demonstrate that.

If the answer is yes, candidates should be told clearly, and Atlas calls on Rio to address the unequal treatment and explain what changes it is willing to make.

8. An invitation to meaningful dialogue

Atlas welcomes constructive, evidence-based communication about these findings, the disclosure we seek and the changes we encourage.

We invite Rio Tinto to provide relevant information, identify factual or analytical errors with supporting evidence, and discuss practical improvements.

Substantive responses will be published alongside the case where publication is permitted. Atlas will assess new evidence, correct factual errors and update its findings where warranted.

Response record: No substantive organisational response is included in this published case. Dated correspondence and responses will be linked when available.

Sources

• Rio Tinto 2025 Annual Report: printed pp. 35 and 39 (graduate target and intake); p. 114 (gender objectives and variable remuneration); pp. 132–133 (Group incentive measure and outcome).
• Rio Tinto Inclusion and Diversity Policy: effective 7 January 2025, pp. 2–3.
• Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth): sections 7D and 14.