Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest investor engagement initiative on climate change, has released its Net Zero Standard for Diversified Mining.
The standard provides a new transparent, systematic, and evidence-backed engagement tool, giving signatories and the wider investor landscape the metrics most specific to this important, but complex, sector.
It is designed to complement the sector-neutral Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Company Benchmark.
The Net Zero Standard for Diversified Mining reflects the outcome of extensive consultation with investors, mining companies themselves and other key stakeholders. A final consultation on a draft of the Standard was conducted May-June 2023 before the final release.
The Net Zero Standard For Diversified Mining
Investor Expectations For Diversified Mining
Mining companies have the potential to reduce transition risk and accelerate the global transition to net zero.
Rapid cuts in the consumption of coal, particularly thermal coal, are needed over the next decade to constrain emissions within a 1.5°C budget. Many CA100+ mining companies are already repositioning their businesses for the net zero transition.
While there are significant transition risks for many mining companies, the transition also creates opportunities for miners, with demand for key commodities needed for the roll-out of clean energy technologies forecast to grow significantly by 2030.
Meeting this demand requires urgent and significant investment.
Investors therefore need frameworks – such as the new standard – that can interrogate the credibility of current company transition plans, track progress and, where plans are not forthcoming or are inadequate, inform engagement conversations.
Documents included in the release
- The Net Zero Standard for Diversified Mining
This sets out metrics that diversified mining companies engaged with under Climate Action 100+ will be assessed against, and the scoring methodology that will be used. These metrics are additional to the Climate Action 100+ Net Zero Company Benchmark, and this document shows how the new metrics relate to the existing indicators and sub-indicators of the Net Zero Company Benchmark.
Download (pdf)
- Investor Expectations for Diversified Mining
An accompanying document that fleshes out the Standard with background and rationale behind the metrics found in the Standard itself.
Download (pdf)
Next Steps
The metrics laid out in both documents will now be piloted by assessing selected miners with the objective of testing their practicality. Feedback from these pilots will be used to further refine the metrics into a final list, with which it is expected public assessments will be made. These assessment results (as well as the narrative and context provided in the Investor Expectations) will bring impactful insights to engagement conversations.
Quotes
Rebecca Mikula-Wright, Chief Executive Officer, AIGCC, says: “The world’s leading miners are already shifting their businesses to help the world decarbonise, but some are just making claims that aren’t backed by reality. This new standard will help investors and governments separate the greenwashers from the companies that will have sustainable businesses in a net zero world.”
Laura Hillis, Church of England Pensions Board, added: “Investors often have exposure not only to the mining sector, but to many other sectors that are underpinned and enabled by mining. For example, the autos, property, steel and manufacturing sectors are highly dependent on the commodities produced by miners. By focusing on the strategic role of mining in the net zero transition, we can boost the resilience of our overall portfolio. This standard provides an ambitious but credible framework for investors and mining companies to ensure this critical sector supports a just and orderly transition to net-zero, and it raises the bar at a crucial time in this essential global economic transformation.”
Climate Action 100+ companies that will be assessed with the standard:
Anglo American, ANTAM, BHP, Glencore, Grupo México, Rio Tinto, South32, Teck Resources, Vale, Vedanta.
About Climate Action 100+
Climate Action 100+ is an investor initiative which aims to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change. Over 700 investors, responsible for $68 trillion in assets under management, are engaging companies on improving climate change governance, cutting emissions and strengthening climate- related financial disclosures.
The work of the initiative is coordinated by five investor networks: the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC), Ceres, Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). It is supported by a global Steering Committee.
Climate Action 100+ launched in December 2017, garnering immediate worldwide attention. The initiative has since become the largest ever global investor engagement initiative on climate change, with growing influence and impact. Climate Action 100+ was initially launched as a five-year initiative (2017-22). In 2023, it announced its second phase to run from 2023 to 2030.
Follow Climate Action100+ on Twitter: @ActOnClimate100.
Acknowledgments
Climate Action 100+ kindly acknowledges the input of all of the investors, mining companies and other expert stakeholders that provided feedback and input into the development of the Standard. Full acknowledgement provided in the Standard.
Legal Disclaimer
Climate Action 100+ does not require or seek collective decision-making or action with respect to acquiring, holding, disposing and/or voting of securities. Signatories are independent fiduciaries responsible for their own investment and voting decisions and must always act completely independently to set their own strategies, policies and practices based on their own best interests. The use of particular engagement tools and tactics, including the scope of participation in Climate Action 100+ engagements, is at the discretion of individual signatories. Climate Action 100+ facilitates the exchange of public information, but signatories must avoid the exchange (this includes one-way disclosures) of non-public, competitively sensitive information, including with other signatories, participants in engagements, Climate Action 100+ itself, and its investor networks. It is important to note that an exchange of information can achieve the same end as an explicit agreement and it is important to avoid exchanging information which might result in a breach of competition law, even if only inadvertently. Signatories may not claim to represent other signatories or make statements referencing other signatories without their express consent. Any decision by signatories to take action with respect to acquiring, holding, disposing and/or voting of securities shall be at their sole discretion and made in their individual capacities and not on behalf of Climate Action 100+, its investor networks or their other signatories or members. Signatories must avoid coordination of strategic behavior between competitors that impacts or is likely to impact competition. Climate Action 100+ and its investor networks do not act or speak on behalf of each other or Climate Action 100+ signatories. They also do not seek directly or indirectly, either on their own or another’s behalf, the power to act as proxy for a security holder and do not furnish or otherwise request, or act on behalf of a person who furnishes or requests, a form of revocation, abstention, consent or authorization. In addition, Climate Action 100+ does not provide investment or voting recommendations, and signatories are not obligated by Climate Action 100+ to make investment or voting recommendations based on the investment or voting behavior of other signatories. Climate Action 100+ and its investor networks do not provide investment, legal, accounting or tax advice. Climate Action 100+ and its investor networks do not necessarily endorse or validate the information contained herein.