PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining major BHP and Japan’s Mitsubishi Development have inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to jointly pursue emissions reductions.

BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie on Thursday said that the MoU marked the start of an important collaboration with one of the company’s essential long-term industry partners.

“BHP is committed to accelerating the development of emerging technologies that have the potential to achieve material reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” Mackenzie said.

“Our new collaboration with Mitsubishi Development demonstrates the important role the private sector can play in bringing these technologies to market.

“Both companies are committed to emissions reductions in a range of industries, including the steel industry. Our Japanese partners and customers are critical to the development of new technologies and approaches to emissions reductions that stand to benefit countries across the globe.”

Under the MoU, the two companies will be reviewing opportunities to undertake research, pilot new ideas, and develop and deploy new emissions reduction technologies.

The collaboration with Mitsubishi Development forms part of BHP’s global programme of projects in China, Canada, the US and Australia to progress low emissions technology. This is in addition to the near-term and longer-term targets the company has set for emissions reductions within its global operations.

“At BHP, we work with customers, suppliers and parties along our value chain to influence emissions reductions across the full life-cycle of our products,” Mackenzie said. 

“As well as investments in emerging technologies, we set greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for our operations, we build the resilience of our operations and communities to the physical impacts of climate change, and we work across sectors to strengthen the global policy and market response.”