The world's leading metals and mining corporation, Rio Tinto, has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Volvo Group to create a strategic partnership where the Anglo-Australian multinational company will supply responsibly sourced low-carbon products and solutions to Volvo Group. In order to reduce Rio Tinto's carbon footprint, Volvo Group's sustainable autonomous haulage solutions will be piloted.
The multi-materials partnership will empower Rio Tinto to progress sustainability commitments in its operations and supply chains. However, it will support Volvo Group, one of the world's most significant transport and infrastructure providers, in its ambition toward a net-zero future. The partnership targets to secure supplies of materials, including low-carbon aluminium, lithium, copper, and metallic.
Jakob Stausholm, the CEO of Rio Tinto, said: "We look forward to partnering with Volvo to progress our contribution to a net-zero future, as we collaborate to deliver sustainable outcomes from the mine to the showroom floor. We will work together to support the decarbonisation of Rio Tinto's operations and deliver low-carbon materials for use in Volvo's innovative product range, including electric and autonomous vehicles."
Martin Lundstedt, the President and CEO of Volvo, said: "We are eager to partner with Rio Tinto, a true collaboration aiming to accelerate our ambitions towards a fossil-free, decarbonised future. By addressing the full value chain, from using low-carbon materials in our products to providing our customers with sustainable autonomous hauling solutions, we can contribute to a better and more sustainable future."
Together, the companies will be able to strengthen the supply of low-carbon materials sourced responsibly, including RenewAlTM aluminium, aluminium produced from ELYSISTM zero-carbon smelting technology, aluminium certified by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) and copper certified by Copper Mark, as well as explore product development opportunities such as lithium for batteries.
Volvo Autonomous Solutions offers an autonomous hauling solution based on Transport as a Service (TaaS). It includes a vehicle purpose-built for autonomous driving, a virtual driver, required infrastructure, operations and uptime support, and a cloud solution that controls the transport system and manages logistics flows. The solutions developed by Volvo Autonomous Solutions are tailor-made for each customer's needs and intended to make their operations more safe, productive and sustainable.
Responses
