Stronger collaborations are needed to continue reducing emissions

I recently attended the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where I had the opportunity?of participating in a very interesting panel on Emissions Reductions in the Mining Industry. On the panel were Jakob Stausholm , Eduardo Bartolomeo , Rohitesh Dhawan , and Silvio Dulinsky . We discussed how the mining industry can further reduce its Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.?

Scope 1 are emissions coming from our own operations and most miners are pursuing energy efficiencies and finding new solutions like hydrogen for hauling.?At Antofagasta we are working on various solutions with different providers to reduce emissions in our haulage fleets, either through green hydrogen or eventually, electric trucks. We met our first reduction goal ahead of schedule and have set another, more ambitious reduction target in coming years.

Scope 2 emissions come from our energy suppliers and in Antofagasta Minerals ’s case, we have converted all our contracts to renewable sources, so we are 100% reliant on renewable energy.?We aren′t the only ones doing this, as the mining industries was one of the first, especially in copper-intensive Chile, to begin migrating their energy contracts to renewables.

Scope 3 emissions are more challenging depending on what commodity is produced, but in most cases, Scope 3 represents the majority of emissions.?Before we continue along the path of certified emissions reductions, we need to have a reliable and consistent measurement tool so we have a clear baseline from which to measure. As a matter of fact, we will work this year with our local suppliers to make this baseline a requirement in their tender bids.

Additionally, the reduction of Scope 3 emissions requires strong collaboration and alignment across the value chain, and we need to work together as an industry to set a pathway with a common aspiration. While there are different levels of sophistication and awareness around emission reduction along the value chain, we need to balance aspiration with certainty to make meaningful change.

The world’s energy transition into a low-carbon economy requires an unprecedented volume of copper, but the copper, and the mining, industry’s ability to influence Scope 3 emissions by ourselves is limited. New forms of collaboration are needed.

We are running out of time. We are starting to enter a new normal where we need to get used to making decisions with answers that are still work in progress. We don’t have the luxury to have all answers to make decisions anymore. The mining industry, and any other industry as well, has to work closely in collaboration with all social actors to achieve our goals.