Rio Tinto has teamed up with China’s largest steelmaker as it seeks to reduce emissions from steel production, since the iron ore miner faces pressure to become more environmentally friendly.
Rio said it will work with China Baowu Steel Group and Tsinghua University to “develop and implement new methods to reduce carbon emissions and improve environmental performance across the steel value chain”.
The world’s largest mining companies are under pressure to lower emissions from their products in an attempt to push the decarbonisation of industrial supply chains.
Manufacturing steel is one of the largest sources of carbon emissions, responsible for between 7 and 9 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, according to Rio.
The traditional method of making iron and steel by smelting raw materials at extremely high temperatures has not fundamentally changed in more than 150 years. Large blast furnaces rely on coke, a carbon-rich fuel made from coal, to reduce iron ore into liquid metal, which is refined into steel.
Rio said on Wednesday it will form a joint working group with Baowu and Tsinghua to look at how to make steel production more environmentally friendly, which will also involve using hydrogen, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, Rio’s chief executive, said.
In March Rio rejected proposals to set targets for so-called Scope 3 emissions from its customers, saying they were primarily caused by its customers over which it had “very limited control”.
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