Rusal, the world's leading aluminium producer, has presented its annual Sustainability Report for 2020, highlighting that the COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed the company’s commitment to its sustainable development agenda and also prepared the firm to respond to global challenges by offering timely and effective assistance to local communities.

To combat COVID-19, Rusal built large-scale medical centres in Achinsk, Boguchany, Bratsk, Krasnoturinsk, Sayanogorsk, Taishet, and Shelekhov, with a total cost of about 4 billion rubles.

Simultaneously, Rusal’s long-term social programme called “Rusal Territory” reached another momentum. Since 2010, the programme has consistently improved the quality of life in territories where Rusal holds its presence.

Rusal also became one of the world’s leading companies of the Carbon Disclosure Project rating’s in 2020. It received a medal in the prestigious EcoVadis sustainable development rating for significantly improving its performance in comparison to the results of the previous audit.

The next step in the journey of reducing carbon footprint in the production of aluminium was the launch of a pilot site with inert anodes cells at the Krasnoyarsk Aluminium Smelter. The first batches of aluminium with the lowest carbon footprint in the world were produced at this site.

Sales of low-carbon aluminium under the brand ALLOW also increased last year by more than 1.7 times.

At the beginning of 2021, Rusal announced an ambitious strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 as part of Net Zero initiative.

Evgenii Nikitin, General Director of RUSAL, noted: "The world is moving towards integrating ESG principles into a number of determining factors of business, so the basis of our strategic vision is social responsibility, the transition to a "green" aluminium industry and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. The desire for real sustainability is especially relevant at a time of global challenges and accelerated climate change. We believe that our work makes a real contribution to the global sustainable development".

Rusal prepared and published its sustainability reports in accordance with the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative, the principles of the Global Compact and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative Association.