Sustainability 4–7% McKinsey & Company
Percentage of global greenhouse gas emissions within mining that come from Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
“The idea is that our guidance for members in developing these targets is robust and not simply aspirational. It needs to inform net-zero targets and align to the Paris Agreement, and be founded on credible measurement and technical work agreed by our 27 members and the specialist stakeholders we have engaged on this topic.”
A deep process of questioning While Spano is keen to stress that this guidance is still very much ‘in the kitchen’, the organisation is taking concrete steps to build on best practice where it exists, reviewing existing methodologies in hard-to-abate sectors to see how companies have been measuring their Scope 3 emissions and what the rest of the industry can learn from them. “We’re looking at how they define criticality, how they define the boundaries across the value chain, how they source and manage the data, what level of granularity they apply to the 15 categories of Scope 3 emissions, including purchased goods and services, transportation and use of sold products,” Spano explains.
In addition, the ICMM is not only trying to understand where there are differences between methodologies, but why. For example, why do some companies choose an emission factor that is updated yearly and others think it’s fine to do it less frequently? “We’re asking several times ‘why?’,” Spano says. “We’re not just thinking, if these five companies do it this way, let’s do it this way – we’re going into a deep process of questioning.” This process is being made slightly easier by the fact that the leading companies in the industry are
being transparent in their reporting. “They not only say what they are doing in detail but also where the challenges are, where double counting may happen across the value chain, how they are addressing that double counting, and where they may still be double counting,” Spano says.
The ICMM is also going beyond its mining industry members to look at best practice in other industries such as oil and gas, and cement and chemicals, which have already developed Scope 3 emissions recommendations. “We are trying to learn why they have chosen that route, what is informing their decisions and how, and whether those recommendations are working from a technical point of view,” Spano notes.
Driving new standards
Collaboration across the entire value chain of any industry is the only way to drive it towards a new standard – whatever, in the mining industry’s case, that standard turns out to be. As Spano explains, examples from industries such as automotives and lighting demonstrate why this is such a vital consideration.
“It was a lightbulb moment when Philips came up with the revolutionary idea of not selling a lightbulb but selling light,” he recalls. “When the industry realised they could sell outcomes rather than products, that quickly led to another realisation – that you need to engage with the whole value chain, from regulators to financers to consumers, to make such a shift.”
By this, Spano is referring to Philips Lighting’s (since rebranded as Signify) decision to offer ‘lighting-
The Ptolemaida-Florina coal mine, one of the largest mines in Europe, is due to be shut down in 2025. Around 95% of GHG emissions associated with coal mines come from the use of sold products, which is covered by Scope 3.
40 World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
Savvas Karmaniolas/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
