Mission Possible – initiative for the decarbonisation of industries

Industrial decarbonisation is possible! The Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) agrees. The initiative aims to drive the Net Zero transformation of seven industrial sectors by harnessing the potential, expertise and experience of the world's leading climate change organisations, bringing technical expertise and a coherent global vision for industrial decarbonisation. Supported by a growing network of nearly 300 business, financial and policy partners, the MPP promotes ambitious industry initiatives in seven targeted sectors that mobilise the entire value chain to decarbonise these carbon-intensive industries.

Mission Possible Partnership is an initiative of climate leaders and companies to drive decarbonisation across the value chain of the world's highest emitting industries and the transport sector. As an alliance, the partners aim to drive the decarbonisation of seven global industries: Aviation, shipping, trucking, steel, aluminium, cement/concrete and chemicals. Without immediate action, these sectors alone are projected to exceed the remaining carbon budget of 1.5°C by 2030 in a business-as-usual scenario. For the initiative, MPP brings together influential global leaders and companies from finance, politics, industry and business – a dedicated community of CEOs from carbon-intensive industries with their funders, customers and suppliers to agree on long-term strategies for decarbonisation and put them into action accordingly.

The initiative follows a four-step approach that can be tailored to individual sectors: Bringing together committed sector leaders and agreeing on a shared vision for decarbonising the sector; using existing analysis to develop viable sectoral transformation strategies for net-zero emissions by 2050; commitments from sector leaders to link and implement the concrete actions to the roadmap milestones; and building the necessary market infrastructure. 

Another important and particularly efficient step is to expand the production of secondary aluminium: recycling aluminium, secondary production, has a much smaller footprint than the production of primary aluminium – 0.5 t CO2e/t aluminium compared to up to 16 t CO2e/t Al. And aluminium is infinitely recyclable without any loss of quality! 

MPP's Aluminium Transition Strategy – supported by key global aluminium producers – encompasses a shared vision for the industry's low-carbon future. The strategy sets out real economy milestones and details the actions needed in the industry, in policy and in finance, for example additional low-carbon refineries and smelters would need to come on stream now to begin the transition to zero-carbon production in the 2030s and 2040s. It also makes clear: swift action is needed for the sector to meet the 1.5°C pathway! Against this background, the strategy highlights four particularly important measures:

• Decarbonisation of energy supply is crucial: all smelters must switch to low-carbon electricity by 2035, which corresponds to a low-carbon electricity demand of about 1,000 TWh.
• Decarbonisation of power generation is necessary but not sufficient to decarbonise the sector. New low-carbon anode technologies and new refining technologies need to be brought to market by 2030.
• Recycled aluminium plays a crucial role and will increase its share of supply from 33% in 2020 to over 50% in 2050.
• The transformation of the primary aluminium sector will need to mobilise investments of around USD 1 trillion over the next 30 years, with over 70% of this required for supporting infrastructure, mainly electricity.

In summary, it becomes clear once again: Net Zero Aluminium is possible! The aluminium industry can reduce emissions by up to 95% by 2050. It requires investments and changes along the entire value chain and how it is organised. It requires close cooperation with the energy and recycling sectors, especially to accelerate technological change. In addition, financial institutions and policy makers need to be involved. An important first step is to implement measures to decarbonise the energy supply now. It requires further action such as strengthening the secondary market for aluminium, commercialising new technologies and developing a business model that can close the cost gap between fossil fuel and low-carbon aluminium production. But the joint effort of all actors along the entire value chain can help to achieve the goals.