FutureSmart Mining™

Driving tailings innovation: Hydraulic dewatered stacking

Enter the world of FutureSmart Mining™

Our innovation-led approach to sustainable mining is integral to building an industry that has a minimal physical footprint, goes beyond carbon neutral and works in partnership to achieve a greater goal.

Technology, digitalisation and sustainability working hand in hand

These are the step-change innovations that will transform the nature of mining – how we source, mine, process, move and market our products – and how our stakeholders experience our business. It is about transforming our physical and societal footprint.

We envisage a much-reduced environmental footprint from new ways of mining, including by using a number of precision mining technologies and data analytics, while our collaborative approach to regional economic development and our ambitious global stretch goals, aimed at delivering improvements to areas such as health and education, are at the heart of how we will create truly sustainable and thriving communities.

In order to live up to our Purpose, we are changing the way we operate through smart innovation that connects technology, digitalisation and a holistic approach to sustainability.

The mining industry is playing a considerable role in helping the world decarbonise, both through our own emissions footprint and the metals and minerals that we produce that are critical to low carbon energy and transport systems. ”

Duncan Wanblad Chief Executive Officer

Proven and scaling-up technologies

We are working on a number of key initiatives that show our FutureSmart Mining^TM approach in action. These include:

Hydraulic Dewatered Stacking (HDS) - Anglo American’s patented tailings management system, designed to make tailings storage safer and more sustainable. In 2024, we made significant progress in advancing HDS towards operational completion.
SandLix™ - Anglo American’s novel heap leach process, directly addresses some of the most pressing challenges facing the industry when it comes to future copper supply. SandLix™ has been specifically developed to economically treat low-grade, complex ores, while being far less energy and water intensive than conventional processes, such as flotation. SandLix™ is conceptually simple and has been demonstrated at pilot scale, proving to deliver equal or better recovery rates than flotation on primary ore – more than 85% within 250 days.
Envusa Energy - Inspired by the Nguni word “Vusa”, meaning “to awaken”, Envusa Energy is Anglo American’s jointly owned renewable energy venture with EDF Renewables – a global leader in renewable energy technology – to develop and supply wind and solar energy solutions, at scale, across the region.

In the pipeline

Whilst our key projects like Envusa, HDS and SandLix™ continue to mature and evolve, we also continue to develop new concepts:

Green Mobility - Decarbonisation remains an imperative for the world, and the renewable electrical pathway presents a promising and economic route to achieve decarbonization in most industries. Anglo American, is part of this global ecosystem, and our diesel equipment-related carbon emissions represents the most significant portion of our operational (Scope 1&2) emissions. We are confident that reducing these emissions, through a combination of technologies including, but not limited to, electrification, biofuels, as well as other solutions is both practical and commercially viable.

Sensing – Precision mining for the highest value materials using data from real-time, in-pit ore sensors.

Smart Protein – We are combining precision fermentation and novel agriculture to turn dry land into cactus biomass and cactus into bio-identical egg white for industrial bakeries. The result is a dramatically lower carbon, water, land footprint than traditional egg production at a competitive price, delivering carbon and sustainability benefits as well as employment outside the mine gate. This is made possible by our partnerships with food-biotech scale-up OneGo Bio, science partner VTT as well as a number of academic and commercial agricultural partners.