Rio Tinto has a long history of supplying minerals and commodities for manufacturing, including steelmaking, and operates sites across Africa, the Americas, Europe and Australia. In 2018, the company divested from its last remaining coal assets, but its value chain emissions (scope 3), primarily from the use of iron ore in steelmaking, continue to form nearly the whole of the company’s emissions profile.

ACCR engages regularly with Rio Tinto on its decarbonisation commitments and climate-related lobbying. In 2021, the board and 99% of the company’s shareholders supported our resolution calling for improvement to its annual review of industry associations and suspension of membership of groups found to lobbying against climate action.. Following this, Rio Tinto withdrew its membership of the Queensland Resources Council, and in 2023, commenced more proactive disclosures around the positive climate policies and technology pathways required to successfully decarbonise its assets.

Details of Rio Tinto’s announced steel and iron decarbonisation projects, which feature in ACCR’s global coverage of the steel sector’s emission reduction efforts, can be found here.

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