• The First Movers Coalition held in-person gathering under the title “Breaking Through for Aluminium – Decarbonising the Industry with New Technologies and Mindsets” at the World Economic Forum Headquarters in Geneva on 11 September 2024. 
• The event convened 40 stakeholders from across the industry’s value chain alongside representatives from a broad aluminium ecosystem, including FMC government partners.
• Participants discussed discuss the key enablers and challenges for the sector’s green transformation.

Discussions brought together over 40 participants from FMC governments partners, international organizations, professional bodies, and FMC corporate members representing aluminium buyers from different industrial sectors such as automotive, food packaging, construction, machinery, and semi-fabricators. Through a day full of dynamic panel and breakout discussions, participants shared their insights into the everyday challenges they are facing in attempting to implement their ambitious decarbonization plans to reduce the sector’s emissions.

The key event objectives were:

• To explore demand and supply dynamics for low-carbon aluminium by 2030 and beyond through direct stakeholder interactions 
• To discuss the clean tech project landscape and identify avenues for accelerating the upscaling of available clean technologies and clean metal supplies
• To identify the role for public policy and financial interventions in sector decarbonisation as well as deployment opportunities for private finance
• To identify necessary systemic improvements contributing to the overall sector transparency, traceability, and competitiveness

FMC Government Partner representatives from the United States of America and Australia also took part and shared their experiences of targeted public interventions in the alumina refining, aluminium smelting and recycling segments of aluminium production. They called for a strategic approach to the decarbonization of the aluminium sector amid growing demand for this metal and considering its importance for national economic development and security. 

Industry representatives from Brazil called for transparency and equality in international trade, while representatives from the leading international organizations and NGOs supported building of a level playing field through the use of consistent emission measurement methodologies, reporting standards and definitions with embedded emissions traceability.  

The following themes were included in the programme:

1. The central role of aluminium in the energy transition – this thematic plenary focused on viable decarbonisation pathways (energy electrification, direct emissions cuts, growing recycling, and value chain efficiencies) and the impact of sector decarbonisation pathways on its overall competitiveness within the green economic transition. 
2. Sharing the costs of sector decarbonisation – this focused panel discussion provided an overview of current global undertakings aimed at aluminium decarbonization, highlighting varying geographical considerations, the role of demand signals, potential to spread the risks, and fostering faster clean tech uptake. 
3. Upscaling of low carbon aluminium production – a deep dive with the global low carbon aluminium suppliers (co)investing in R&D, clean tech commercialisation, and new production capacities, which provided updates on exemplary efforts in clean technology developments and tough timelines for low-carbon aluminium production upscaling. 

Breakout mixed sessions then drew together summary recommendations for the key enabling pillars:

• Demand – Stressed the role of demand for low-carbon aluminium by capturing buyers’ and end-consumers’ expectations, plans, value chain decarbonisation strategies, etc.  
• Policy – Highlighted policies that could enable faster sector decarbonization in a global/regional context, such as: increased renewables capacity, access to clean energy and storage, carbon pricing, R&D funding, etc. 
• Finance – Shed light on underlining risks and associated flexible financial structures needed to spread the risk across the value chain; the role of green premium and underlining enablers, etc. 
• Transparency – Explored utilisation of cross-sectoral learnings (e.g. steel) to promote sector-wide standardisation of emissions measurement key principles, methodology, and definitions, in building up of sector credibility and faster decarbonization.