‘Mining industry must address climate change issues’

The mining industry must evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities of a very different 21st century, according to Simone Niven, group executive: corporate relations at Rio Tinto. This included more longterm collaboration not just between mining companies themselves, but also with technology partners and environmentalists. Niven said mining houses

would in future also have to change their mindset to include more diversity. “Women remain vastly under-represented in our workforce. The gender gap isn’t a gender issue. It’s a business and society issue. And we have a long way to go,” she said. Africa, said Niven, was in this regard proving to be a bright spot. “At 86%, Rwanda has one of the highest

rates of female labour force participation in the world – in the United States, by contrast, that number is 56%. And not only are participation rates higher in Rwanda, but the wage gap is also narrower.” Climate change was another key issue, said Niven, and the mining industry business models had to change to consider the impacts and opportunities of climate change, recycling and digital.

In Africa, mining companies have long been held responsible for environmentally unfriendly behaviour and that can no longer be the case. “Can we, and should we, expand our model to take into account the impact of our products? And by this, I mean negative and positive. Should we be spending more time and effort (and money!) developing new products that help our

customers’ environmental footprint?” asked Niven. Last year, Rio Tinto launched a joint venture with Alcoa, with the support of Apple and the governments of Canada and Quebec. This partnership, called Elysis, is aimed at eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the aluminium smelting process, replacing them with pure oxygen.