Achieving net zero carbon emissions between now and 2050 has been a fast-evolving topic with lots of work being done in the mining industry, particularly around its Scope 1 and 2 emissions, Standard Chartered Bank MD and sustainable finance head Daniel Hanna said this week.

He addressed the Financial Times (FT) Mining Summit on October 7, noting that the banking, finance and mining industries were all challenged by Earth’s climate emergency, with a growing focus by consumers, investors and regulators on the importance of the principles of environment, social and governance.

In this regard, he noted that a number of factors had come together and were accelerating.

For example, he pointed out that, when he last spoke at an FT Mining Summit, the net zero asset owners alliance – a group of investors focussed on their investments being aligned with net zero – was only just created. The alliance now had more than $40-trillion-worth of assets under management.

“That is eight times the amount [compared to when] I last spoke to the FT Mining Summit,” he pointed out.

In addition, he explained that "green growth" was going to require a lot from the mining industry, such as copper, graphite, lithium and a number of other critical metals, with increases in demand of between 250% and 500% expected in future.

Glencore sustainable development head Anna Krutikov, meanwhile, told delegates participating in the summit that there were a couple of other “really important” considerations as companies ramp up their net zero efforts, including a “tidal wave” of commitments from key jurisdictions around the world.

“This time last year we saw a commitment from China to achieve net zero by 2060, the European Union developing the regulations supporting their commitments, and the US going back into the Paris Agreement,” she said.

These commitments are significant, said Krutikov, because they normalise concepts of net zero by 2050 which has become the “new expectation”.

She noted that normalising net zero concepts was an important step for the mining industry. She added that the industry was likely to soon see the beginning of efforts to operationalise some of the commitments made thus far.

“There is a lot more work to be done; there are a lot of questions we do not have answers to today, but it is incredibly exciting to see how some of these commitments, which were essential as a first step, are now starting to translate into action,” said Krutikov.

Also, she noted that customers of the mining industry, such as automotive original-equipment manufacturers, for instance, have been at the forefront of thinking about how that industry understands its carbon footprint, how it thinks about it in a holistic way – from “cradle to the [end-product] the car” and how it works together with its value chains to drive decarbonisation.

“[This creates] a virtuous circle of commitments driving policy detailing, driving a lot of these conversations happening not just horizontally in the industry but also vertically throughout the value chain,” said Krutikov.