Environmental Profile of Aurubis Copper
Already small and still shrinking: The environmental footprint of Aurubis cathode copper
Metals, and copper in particular, will be key for a clean energy transition to reach the EU objective of a carbon-neutral continent by 2050. They play an important role in renewable energies, electrification, and electric vehicles. At the same time, clean energy will only be truly clean with sustainable metal production throughout the entire value chain.
As a sustainably oriented multimetal company, Aurubis takes responsibility for the global challenges of climate change, environmental protection, and resource conservation. We therefore have set the objective of achieving carbon-neutral production by 2050. And we are well on our way: within just six years, the carbon footprint of cathode copper from Aurubis has decreased by a full 25 %. And even before that, the carbon footprint of our cathode copper was a full 40 % below the global average for all copper smelters and refiners.1
Life cycle assessment for Aurubis cathode copper
However, looking at CO2 emissions alone does not give a comprehensive picture of a product’s environmental impact. Therefore, we at Aurubis evaluated the environmental profile of our core product, cathode copper, by carrying out a life cycle assessment (LCA). This is the acknowledged method to evaluate the environmental impact of a product over its entire life cycle. In this holistic approach, we took into account all the activities involved in the production of cathode copper from cradle to gate, such as copper ore extraction, smelting and refining, transportation, energy consumption, and auxiliary materials. The study was conducted in conformance with the ISO standards 14040 and 14044 for life cycle assessment.² In the calculation, we included the production from both primary and secondary raw materials combined, i.e., the weighted average for cathode copper across the Aurubis Group.
1 Sources: International Copper Association, Copper Environmental Profile, Sept. 2017 / Aurubis, supported by Quantis. Reference years 2013 and 2019, respectively.
2 ISO 14040:2006 Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework / ISO 14044:2006 Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines.