JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified miner Anglo American intends to achieve full carbon neutrality across its operations by 2040, with eight of its operations to reach that goal by 2030.
The commitment was initially made in May this year, but CEO Mark Cutifani on October 30 elaborated that this goal would be achieved through the technologies that the miner is implementing through a connection between its technology work and its Sustainable Mining Plan outcomes under its FutureSmart Mining Programme.
Speaking during Anglo’s yearly sustainability performance update, he said that “sustainability lives at the very heart of [Anglo’s] strategy”, adding that “tackling climate change is the defining challenge of our times”.
The sustainability update was initially scheduled for April, but had to be rescheduled owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anglo’s underlying principle is to reduce carbon going into the atmosphere, and for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, specifically. The miner’s pathways include an ongoing transition of its portfolio towards those metals and minerals which support a greener, cleaner and more sustainable world.
In this regard, a demerger for Anglo’s thermal coal operations in South Africa will be likely.
Anglo also intends to reduce its energy consumption and intensity through P101 performance improvements, technologies and digitalisation, while simultaneously increasing its use of renewable energy.
For the former, Anglo met its 2020 target of a 22% reduction in emissions yearly, while with regard to the latter, Anglo will use 100% renewables in Chile from 2021 and Brazil from 2022.
Trials for a hydrogen fuel-cell-powered haul truck in South Africa are also planned for 2021, and the use of nature-based solutions will become more prominent as Anglo looks to control where it can show carbon reduction alongside improving local biodiversity.
“We’re also taking a considered approach to tackling Scope 3 emissions. In some of the 15 categories in our published inventory, we have a high level of control or influence over the source of the emissions and so we can drive emissions down,” Cutifani said, emphasising that the miner is “evaluating the best ways for [Anglo] to play its part”.
SUSTAINABLE MINING PLAN UPDATES
Anglo’s 2020 Sustainable Mining Plan targets that relate to energy use, greenhouse-gas emissions emissions and water are unchanged and performance will be assessed at the end of the year.
The time period for achieving the other 2020 targets has been extended to 2021 following the board’s decision to allow flexibility in order to help the business focus on the priorities of keeping its people and communities safe and of sustaining its operations during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Additionally, and as detailed in Anglo American’s 2019 Sustainability Report, water baseline data is to be reset in 2020 to ensure that the reporting criteria are aligned with the International Council on Mining and Metals’ definitions for water accounting.
This work will be completed by the end of the year and Anglo intends to start reporting against its 2030 targets from 2021.
“We will update on the delivery of our 2020 water targets early next year and have identified additional water projects to implement in the coming years to drive towards our 2030 targets,” Cutifani said.
Anglo’s 2020 water goals are to reduce the abstraction of fresh water by 20% and increase water-recycling levels to 75%; and the miner’s 2030 aim is to reduce the abstraction of fresh water in water-scarce regions by 50%.