Industry council strives to cut emissions with new guidelines

Mining’s top industry group with BHP (NYSE: BHP; LSE: BHP; ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO; LSE: RIO; ASX: RIO) among its members has published a framework for companies to determine their emissions, including how to unravel pollution by suppliers and customers. 

The guidelines issued this week by the London-based International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) aim to improve transparency and collaboration with third parties to reduce emissions in what the council calls the Scope 3 category. 

Council members are vowing to report by the end of the year on their Scope 3 emissions, which can account for between 75% and 95% of a mining company’s overall emissions.

“The guidance helps companies to understand their unique emissions profiles and identify hot spots where they can target efforts in partnership with suppliers and customers to achieve meaningful emission reductions,” ICMM CEO Rohitesh Dhawan said in a statement. 

The effort is based on the most widely used standard for accounting and reporting corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally, the council said. Its membership of the world’s top miners, equipment manufacturers and associations account for a third of the global metals market and include Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM), Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) and Chile’s state-owned Codelco. 

“As minerals and metals are the foundation of so many industries, this creates a particularly complex profile of Scope 3 emissions for the mining and metals sector, with significant variance across commodities and geographies,” Dhawan said. 

Credit: ICMM

The council imposed a deadline in 2021 on its members to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 2050 at the latest. 

Consultant Wood Mackenzie estimates that major global miners’ Scope 3 emissions make up 4% of the world’s total carbon emissions. 

While all large miners have plans in place to reach net-zero emissions, 24 of the world’s largest 25 oil and gas firms don’t, according to a report published Thursday by Carbon Tracker.