Mining giant BHP and tech leader Amazon have launched a first-of-its-kind pilot project to trade lower-emissions credits for copper, allowing companies building the infrastructure for artificial intelligence to directly track and verify their supply-chain footprint, BHP said Tuesday.
They established an industry-first copper pilot to buy and sell credits for lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with copper concentrate and cathodes produced at Escondida.
The Escondida copper mine supplies copper concentrates and cathodes to meet global demand for the metal, which is used in a wide range of materials and products, including digital systems and energy infrastructure.
The mine sources its electricity from renewable energy and operates using desalinated water.
The initiative comes as buyers increasingly seek to understand and influence the greenhouse gas emissions associated with copper used in their products and infrastructure.
– Certificates to track emissions reductions
Under the pilot, copper producers will create and sell Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs) to downstream users to recognize emissions reductions within the copper supply chain.
Buyers can then retire the certificates against greenhouse gas emissions associated with copper in their supply chains.
Amazon will be able to retire the EACs against copper used in its power, cooling and computing infrastructure, including circuit boards, chips, interconnects and cold plates that support artificial intelligence systems.
BHP Group Sales and Marketing Officer Michiel Hovers said the company was pleased to work with Amazon on a first-of-its-kind initiative in the copper value chain aimed at recognizing environmental performance and improving product transparency.
“As global copper demand grows, customers and end users of copper are increasingly focused on security of supply and increasingly looking to source credible, verifiable, sustainable attributes,” Hovers said.
The pilot could help establish a practical pathway to connect lower-emissions copper producers with end users seeking verifiable sustainable materials, such as Amazon, whose cloud infrastructure relies on complex copper supply chains, he said.
– Focus on verification and avoiding double counting
Tracking the environmental attributes of a physical tonne of copper throughout the supply chain can be challenging because the metal passes through multiple stages of smelting, refining, fabrication and manufacturing before reaching the end user.
This initiative will explore eligibility criteria, a governance framework and safeguards against potential double counting, with EACs designed to be verified, traced and registered.
The system being piloted by BHP and Amazon is known as “in-setting” rather than “off-setting,” as the certificates are applied only to emissions within copper supply chains.
