At a time of ever-growing demand for essential resources, our industry is rapidly evolving to address the environmental challenges of a carbon-constrained world, while meeting society’s wider expectations of us at Anglo American as enablers of change.
At Anglo American, we are committed to playing our part in tackling climate change. Guided by our purpose, values and business strategy, we have adopted a comprehensive approach to sustainability, embedding it across our processes and offering.
When it comes to our sales and marketing activities, this means looking holistically at how our products are sourced, produced, used and recycled. In addition, part of our market development programme is focused on co-investing in early-stage green innovation and technologies that are designed to contribute to a cleaner, greener world.
The make-up of our commercial offering is also key in maximising our contribution to a more sustainable society; in particular, how we are positioned to provide our global customer base with the products and services they need to successfully deliver on their own decarbonisation strategies.
Our customers serve some of the world’s most critical industries – from automotive and steelmaking to energy production. That is why our starting point is to focus on what each of these needs before fine-tuning our capabilities to provide tailored solutions to them.
This is the remit of our Energy Solutions team. Through this team, we will build upon our trading capabilities – refined and expanded over the years – to bring a full suite of low carbon products to the market. Building on the qualities and reach of our mined portfolio, we will complement this offering by working closely with our customers to develop long-term, sustainable solutions.
To learn more about the journey we are on, we sat with Zaheer Docrat, Executive Head of Marketing, Energy Solutions.
- What is your vision for the future of the Energy Solutions team within Anglo American?
Anglo American’s ambition is to achieve a 30% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral across our operations by 2040. By 2040, we also aim to reduce our Scope 3 footprint by 50%. This requires us to target emissions reductions across our entire value chain. As a group, we have articulated a broad range of initiatives to effectively tackle this. Our Energy Solutions team has an important role to play in this context. Our aspiration is to build on the existing trading platform we have developed over the years, evolving it into a competitive low-carbon energy products trading team – one with the expertise and capabilities needed to provide tailor-made low carbon solutions to our customers, while also contributing to the reduction of Anglo American’s own carbon footprint.
- Where are you focusing your efforts?
There is no silver bullet to address climate change. Our initial efforts are focused on the emissions sector but over time, as alternative solutions mature and the energy landscape further evolves, we will include a range of other low-carbon products along the way.
Starting with the emissions sector is a logical choice. It plays a key role in driving positive behaviours around emissions reductions; whether through supporting businesses that, despite their best efforts, will have to compensate for emissions that cannot be structurally reduced, or in mobilising capital for technology innovation and projects designed to capture, remove or avoid generating emissions.
We will broaden our reach as the technology and environment to provide alternative solutions further matures.
- How is Anglo American collaborating with customers across the industries we serve, to support the transition to a lower carbon economy?
Effectively, we have a triple ambition. We want to build on the business capability we already have, contribute to emissions reduction targets and the commitments that Anglo American has made, and help our customers achieve their own targets too. To realise this, we are looking to actively participate in the sectors, products and commodities that do, and will, contribute to a better future for us all.
- What factors will contribute to your success on this journey?
Successful change will require a collaboration effort. Anglo American is a diversified miner, with an extensive suite of products – many of which are important ingredients to the energy transition, like platinum group metals (PGMs), copper and nickel. Combine that with our strategic intent, proven track record of successful transformation, well-established trading platform, expert team and global reach, and we have the ability and capability to contribute significantly.
