Ben Marlow: Rio Tinto's chairman must stop digging

A haul truck is loaded by a digger with material from the pit at a Rio Tinto iron ore mine in Pilbara. The mining giant deliberately destroyed two sacred Aboriginal caves in May.

The departure of Rio Tinto boss Jean-Sebastien Jacques may have taken too long but it will still be cheered from the Square Mile to the Australian outback.

His exit is a victory for shareholder activism, corporate governance and the rights of minority groups. Boardrooms around the world will shudder at this democratic triumph.

More importantly, common sense and decency have prevailed. Miners are expected to blow things up. It's what they do. But they are not expected to destroy sites of great archaeological and cultural significance to access lucrative materials in the ground.

Jean-Sebastien Jacques, chief executive officer of Rio Tinto, has quit following the fall out of the company's actions. Photo / Getty

Natural resources companies need a social licence to operate and Rio's was blown to smithereens with this gross act of vandalism. In allowing Jacques to stay, there was a real risk of irreparable damage to the company's reputation and its ability to continue operating in its biggest market.

The idea that Rio could blame the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site on "a misunderstanding", dock the bonuses of those at fault, and expect everyone to quickly move on from the whole saga was frankly laughable.

So, too, was the idea that Jacques was the right man to repair the damage. After all, he claimed he hadn't even been aware of the importance of the ancient cave shelters despite a series of external reports highlighting precisely that.

Yet, even with Jacques and two other senior managers - head of iron ore Christopher Salisbury and corporate affairs chief Simone Niven - finally gone, the FTSE 100 giant faces a fight to salvage its name. The trio aren't leaving because of some epiphany at the top, they've walked the plank because the backlash became deafening.

The bunker mentality occurs naturally in the boardroom when there is clear wrongdoing. Even when it is obvious to the outside world what needs to happen, senior executives will try to desperately cling on in the hope that it all blows over.

Imagine then what some of these individuals might try to get away with if there wasn't the external scrutiny by a free press and shareholder activism to hold them to account. Rio might have blown up the Acropolis or bulldozed the Taj Mahal by now.

Of course we are all human and make mistakes. But public accountability is the foundation of liberal democracy. Without it, the fabric of society becomes frayed.

Companies are no different. They are essentially human constructs but errors are too often met with the "he said/she said" response common among squabbling children.

That's when you need someone, in this case chairman Simon Thompson, with an outside perspective to realise that this is more than just corporate stupidity, to intervene and determine the appropriate response.

Instead, it was reportedly non-executives Simon Henry and Sam Laidlaw that led the push for more severe action.

Rio's trouble is having not moved fast enough in the first instance, Thompson has been forced to admit that he got it wrong.

It was down to him to realise that Jacques needed to go from the outset. By allowing him to stay, and then changing his mind, the chairman has also failed.

So, doesn't he have to go too?