At its Capital Markets Day held in Copenhagen, FLSmidth launched MissionZero, a new sustainability program aimed at significantly reducing emissions across the global cement and mining industries by 2030.
“With economic growth, urbanization and growing populations comes the demand for infrastructure, such as housing, schools, hospitals and roads,” Group CEO Thomas Schulz said. “Added to this, modern conveniences such as air conditioning, appliances and smartphones are high in demand, and renewable energy options such as electric cars, wind and solar energy are looked to as the future. All of that requires cement and minerals, and demand will only continue to rise. Today, we launch MissionZero to seize the opportunity to increase production and at the same time drive emissions toward zero.”
The company will leverage the development of digital and innovative solutions tied to sustainable productivity, offering its customers the required technological solutions to operate zero emissions cement plants by 2030 and manage zero emissions mining processes by 2030 — with specific focus on water management.
Water is a scarce resource in many parts of the world and represents a rising cost for FLSmidth’s mining customers, the company said. The company has set a goal to offer its customers solutions that support zero water waste by 2030, building on the success of recent developments, such as its dry-stack tailings solution (DST). Utilizing DST can recover up to 95% of process water while being economically competitive with alternative water management options such as desalination, even for high tonnages, according to FLSmidth.
“With MissionZero, we commit to our most ambitious goals to date,” Schulz said. “We are doing it because it is necessary, because it is sound business, and because it provides us with a competitive edge.”
MissionZero requires a paradigm shift in how industry players collaborate and innovate, he added.
