RIO TINTO MULTINATIONAL DESIGNS ITS NEW GROWTH AND DECARBONISATION PLANS

The multinational Rio Tinto has announced the actions it intends to carry out in order to strengthen the business and improve its productivity worldwide. Its strategy is focused on the long term to ensure global decarbonisation policies and continue to offer attractive returns.

Specifically, the group has set a new target to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 50% by 2030, more than three times the previous target. In this way, the company expects to achieve a 15% reduction in emissions by 2025, five years earlier than initially planned. These targets are backed by about $7.5 billion in direct investment to reduce emissions by 2030.

Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm confirms that %22all of our commodities are vital to the energy transition and continue to benefit from ongoing urbanisation. We have a clear path to decarbonise our business and are actively developing technologies that will enable our customers and our customers’ customers to decarbonise%22.

Stausholm further reiterates that %22we can do this, while continuing to deliver attractive returns to our shareholders in accordance with our policy, because we have a strong balance sheet and world-class assets that generate strong free cash flows through the cycle.%22

Rio Tinto will accelerate its investment in R&D and development of technologies that enable its customers to decarbonise. Working in partnership with governments, suppliers, customers, academia and others, Rio Tinto will continue to develop technologies such as ELYSIS TM for carbon-free aluminium and multiple pathways to produce green steel.

In particular, Rio Tinto’s Safe Production System is in place to ensure the group regains its position as a best-in-class operator for which it has established long-term plans with rapid improvement activities targeting bottlenecks to reduce operational variability and increase resilience.

And to meet the additional demand created by the global drive towards net zero emissions, Rio Tinto will prioritise growth capital in commodities vital to this transition with an ambition to double growth capital expenditure to $3 billion per annum from 2023.