Rio Tinto boosts effort to achieve emission targets; aluminium businesses will play a vital role

Jean-Sébastien Jacques, CEO, Rio Tinto has stated that meeting the company’s ambitious emission targets would not be possible without using its impact on the downstream customers.

Jacques, while speaking in Rio Tinto’s climate and water seminar, said that achieving the targeted zero net carbon emissions by 2050 requires a synergetic effort across the company’s value chain.

Rio Tinto aims by 2030 to decrease its thorough emissions by 30% to achieve the net-zero. The company plans to invest a billion dollars over the next five years on climate-related projects.

Jacques said: “Our approach to managing emissions depends on our level of influence. We can obviously address the impact of our own operations and can also influence our non-managed assets through our joint-venture arrangements.”

Rio Tinto also focuses to drive away from the usage of carbon-based energy sources in the aluminium production. The aluminium refining and smelting operations will constitute about 70% of its emission reduction targets.

Jacques also said: “Over 70% of our scope one and two emissions are from our aluminium business. Both alumina refining and aluminium smelting are energy-intensive, high-temperature processes.” 

Rio Tinto has started developing a carbon-free aluminium processing technology known as Elysis is a joint venture with Alcoa.

Rio Tinto’s head of group technical, Nigel Steward said the technology had been producing metal at research level since 2009, with the first batch of Elysis aluminium recently purchased by Apple.

Steward said: “Elysis is now working to further develop and scale up the technology so that it can be retrofitted into existing smelters or used for new ones.” 
Jacques also added that increasing investment in renewable energy would be the other key aspect of the company’s focus.