The path to net zero depends on future-enabling commodities like copper. But how do we enable a supply of sustainably and ethically produced metal, while supporting global efforts to decarbonise?
Copper has a multitude of uses across different sectors, including in renewable energy technologies like wind turbines and solar power, batteries for energy storage, and electric vehicles. It has a fundamental role to play in ensuring energy security and enabling the transition to a carbon neutral economy.
Demand for the metal is expected to intensify significantly within this decade, with a recent forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showing a rise in current demand of ~6 million tonnes (Mt) of copper per year, to 11 Mt in its APS Scenario and 16 Mt in its NZE Scenario, by 20301.
Anglo American’s portfolio of high-quality, long-life assets is central to our ambition to contribute to this shift in a meaningful way. To make an even greater impact though, we need to play a role that stretches beyond our own activities and accelerates progress across the entire value chain.
Our starting point is always our customers’ needs, through which translate the trends shaping society’s requirements into demand for the products we mine and source. Targeted engagement with industry players who share our values, and who appreciate the sustainability credentials of our products, helps us anticipate and guide those needs, ensuring the delivery of optimally tailored solutions.
Our collaboration with Aurubis is one example. Under a recently signed memorandum of understanding (MoU), we will combine tenets of Anglo American’s Sustainable Mining Plan and Aurubis’ Tomorrow Metals promise, working together on a series of initiatives aimed at providing greater assurance on the way copper is mined, processed, transported and brought to market.
The copper supply chain is a complex and fragmented one. With a wide range of processes and interdependent steps required to transform copper ore into a marketable product, our combined efforts are aimed at helping us develop and enhance the transparency of the entire supply chain. Together, we will also explore technology-driven traceability solutions designed to bring greater transparency to the entire production cycle.
Peter Whitcutt, CEO of Anglo American’s Marketing business, said: “Copper plays such a pivotal role in addressing the challenges of climate change and raising living standards for the world's growing population. Rightly, it needs to be produced sustainably and as part of a customer-centric supply chain.
“Together with Aurubis, and in line with our Sustainable Mining Plan goal to establish ethical value chains, we are engaging with industry participants to optimise the value that responsible supply can provide. The value chain starts from our portfolio of high-quality and long-life resource assets, now including our new world-class Quellaveco mine in Peru, and we are now working to establish a more comprehensive and integrated approach along the entirety of what is a fragmented mine-to-customer journey.”
Paul Ward, Executive Head of Marketing, Base Metals, said: “Our focus is on shaping an offering that is customised to suit our customers’ needs, and ethical and sustainable value chains that meet consumer-driven demand for responsibly sourced materials. By bringing together Anglo American’s long-standing expertise and heritage in the mining space with the commitment of both our organisations to uphold high ethical and sustainability standards, we can bridge the gap between our production capabilities and what society needs, and truly make a difference in developing a more sustainable supply chain for copper.”
Anglo American and Aurubis have also committed to be assessed against the Copper Mark Chain of Custody Standard. Anglo American’s managed copper operations in Chile – the Los Bronces and El Soldado mining operations and the Chagres smelter – were awarded the Copper Mark, the assurance standard for responsible production practices, in March 2022.
1 World Energy Outlook 2022, IEA, https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2022, License: CC BY 4.0 (report); CC BY NC SA 4.0 (Annex A). APS = Anneounced Pledges (APS) Scenario and NZE = Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario.