The mining industry has a moral obligation to decarbonize, said Sophie Bergeron, the managing director of titanium and diamonds at Rio Tinto, in her keynote on the third day of the 2023 CIM Convention on May 3.  

Bergeron said the industry has significantly shifted its mindset in the last few decades: “How we were approaching it before, it was really [about] getting the best return on investment… Today, we have a responsibility, not only to mine responsibly, but to minimize as much as we can, the footprint of each asset.”

She stated that the big questions in the energy transition are, where do we start? How do we approach decarbonization? At Rio Tinto, Bergeron said the company’s goals are to reduce carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and 15 per cent by 2025 from a 2018 baseline of 32.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from its operations, with the aim of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. 

She described how the challenge lies in “finding better ways to provide the material the world needs” during a time in history when the energy transition is happening rapidly and the demand for essential minerals is expected to skyrocket due to net-zero emissions goals.

With the net-zero goals exerting pressure on the mining industry, Bergeron stated there are three key things needed in the decarbonization journey that every company should invest in: technology, partnerships and people.

Investing in research and development and focusing on rapid technological advancements is critical because we have a “very short period of time” to decarbonize. To help the industry get there, she discussed the importance of partnerships with research universities, companies in the technology sector and other mining companies—all in the name of innovation. This was a major theme of Tuesday’s general panel session, with keynote speaker Luc Sirois stating that innovation is the key to decarbonization, and co-developing technology with competitors that will benefit the entire industry.

Bergeron said that success is impossible without investing in employees, who will drive the innovation that helps reach decarbonization: “That journey starts with people. It is all about people; that transformation will never, never happen without people.”