Human rights groups call on automakers to fight aluminum abuse | Automotive Industry News

Advocacy groups have called on automakers to do more to tackle abuses in their aluminum supply chains, including destruction of farmland, damage to water sources and excessive emissions of gas to greenhouse effect that affect communities in Africa, Asia and South America.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW), along with Inclusive Development International (IDI), released a 63-page document report detailing the impact of aluminum production in particular related to the extraction and refining of bauxite raw material in countries such as Guinea, Ghana, Brazil, China, Malaysia and Australia.

Aluminum is truly a blind spot for the automotive industry. There has been a lot of focus on other materials you need to make electric vehicles like cobalt and lithium for electric batteries, but very little on the impacts of aluminum on human rights, Al told Al. Jazeera Jim Wormington, Senior Africa Researcher at HRW.

We believe this needs to change as the auto industry has a huge influence on mining companies and the industry in general. And if the auto industry starts taking the human rights and environmental impacts of aluminum seriously, mining companies will too, he said.

While the world’s leading automakers have publicly committed to addressing human rights violations in their supply chains, they have done little to assess and address the impact of aluminum production on human rights. the man, HRW said in a statement.

A durian orchard overlooking land operated by bauxite mining companies is seen in Kuantan, Malaysia [File: Olivia Harris/Reuters]

The report was in part based on correspondence with nine major automakers: BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Groupe PSA (now part of Stellantis), Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo.

Three other companies BYD, Hyundai and Tesla did not respond to requests to participate in the studies.

Automakers used a fifth of all aluminum consumed globally in 2019 and are expected to double their consumption by 2050, according to the report.

This increase in the use of aluminum, Wormington said, will be a direct result of increased production of electric vehicles.

It’s the contradiction with many new technologies we need to tackle climate change, including electric vehicles, he said. The reality is that they are going to be produced from raw materials that depend on mining.

So what is critical as this transition occurs is that we have a conversation about how, if we were going to have more mining, we were going to be mining in a responsible and respectful manner. human rights, he said.

Destruction of agricultural land, pollution of waterways

The report highlights how many processes related to aluminum production have disastrous consequences for local communities.

Bauxite, a red ore, involves surface mining, which can destroy large areas of farmland.

In Guinea, which has the world’s largest bauxite deposits, a 2019 government study predicted that over the next 20 years, bauxite mining would remove about 858 square kilometers (331 square miles) of farmland, destroying some 4,700 km² (1,814 square miles) of natural habitat, according to the release.

Meanwhile, refining bauxite into alumina, a step towards creating aluminum, creates large amounts of dangerous red mud that can pollute waterways.

A group in the Brazilian state of Para is currently suing a bauxite mine, refinery and aluminum smelter for allegedly contaminating rivers in the Amazon basin.

The report also highlighted the energy-intensive process of aluminum smelting, noting that China, one of the major aluminum smelting countries, produced 90 percent of its aluminum using coal power in 2018.

Overall, aluminum production is responsible for around 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

As three German automakers Audi, BMW and Daimler have encouraged their suppliers to join an industry-led certification program, the Aluminum Stewardship Initiative (ASI), advocacy groups have said the program lacks details adequate and does not provide specific criteria to assess how well companies are responding to key human rights issues.

The report’s authors noted that some automakers have taken further steps to address aluminum supply chain issues since they were contacted by advocacy groups.

In May, Drive Sustainability, a group of 11 automakers including BMW, Daimler, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo, launched an initiative to assess human rights risks in the production of aluminum and nine other materials. raw.

In a statement, Natalie Bugalski, legal and policy director of Inclusive Development International, said the measures should only be the start of a broader auto industry effort to combat the impact of the production of aluminum on human rights.