Aluminium’s decarbonisation challenge extends beyond the electricity powering its smelters. Inside the reduction cell, electrode quality influences how efficiently that electricity is used, how much carbon is consumed and how consistently the process performs. Improving electrodes therefore offers producers a practical opportunity to address operating costs and emissions together. For Switzerland-based R&D Carbon , understanding the relationship between raw materials, electrode quality and industrial performance has been a focus for four decades. Founded in 1986 by Werner K. Fischer, the company built on carbon research previously undertaken at Swiss Aluminium Ltd., or Alusuisse. Today, it operates from Granges, near Sierre, with a team of 30 specialists serving more than 150 customers...
Mexico’s aluminum industry is looking to capitalize on rising demand from artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, electric mobility, automotive manufacturing, and aerospace. Expanding technology investments and international market opportunities are expected to support sales growth, while the country’s reliance on imported aluminum highlights the importance of strengthening domestic processing capabilities. Ramón Beltrán, president of Mexico’s National Chamber of the Aluminum Industry (Canalum), expects the country’s domestic and international aluminum sales to gain momentum in 2026, supported by demand from advanced technology applications and established manufacturing sectors. “We expect to close out this year with growth of between 7.5% and 7.8% in domestic and international...
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Aditya Alumina Refinery, Kansariguda – a unit of Hindalco Industries Limited – has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Centurion University of Technology. The MoU is a major initiative for establishing a veterinary hospital in Kansariguda and is a key move by the company towards rural and community welfare. This project is a significant part of Hindalco’s well-thought-out strategy for corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, which seeks to provide high-quality and much-needed veterinary services for poultry, livestock, and stray animals, directly addressing the requirements for accessible animal healthcare in the rural communities. The key initiative of the Animal Health Van includes mobile ambulatory services, which will cover 50 villages across the...
Victoria Falls stands as one of Zimbabwe's premier tourist destinations, drawing over a million visitors annually and serving as a pillar for the country's tourism industry. While this influx benefits the local economy, it's also resulted in a significant increase in plastic waste, particularly single-use water bottles. Addressing this challenge, the Victoria Falls-based startup EcoDrop has introduced a practical and sustainable alternative, a reusable aluminium water bottle embedded with QR codes. Victoria Falls is facing mounting challenges due to a surge in single-use plastic waste, mainly from the vast number of tourists. The local waste management systems are struggling to keep up and the consequences are already visible. Wildlife, including elephants, have been found ingesting...
Ardagh Group has announced it will be exhibiting at Drinktec 2025, a leading international event for the beverage and liquid food industry. The trade fair takes place in Munich from September 15 to 19. The firm's participation in the event underscores its ongoing commitment to innovation and industry leadership. The company is set to present its latest metal and glass packaging innovations to customers, partners and key players in the industry. They're putting their newest developments front and centre, making sure everyone in the business gets a look at what's next. Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP) and Ardagh Glass Packaging (AGP) will both be on display at the event, highlighting their leadership in sustainable, high-quality packaging. Attendees can expect to see a broad selection of...
The European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC) has recently had a meeting with the European Commission to extend the scope of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism to include solar trackers, photovoltaic modules, and similar other finished solar products in its portfolio. The concern is that while raw materials like aluminium fall under CBAM, finished imports escape scrutiny – undermining EU producers. Expanding coverage and promoting the use of green aluminium could close this loophole and cut carbon leakage. ESMC authorities believe that leaving these products outside the CBAM portfolio can have a credibility impact on the EU manufacturers, and at the same time, it will be a disadvantage for the business in the long run. The loophole CBAM is dealing with at present As of now, CBAM...
Orogen Royalties and a wholly owned subsidiary of South32, has signed the Generative Exploration Alliance Agreement for exploring the base metals in Western North America. The entire subsidy is given by South32, while Orogen would keep a royalty interest if any base metal is discovered. The agreement is mainly focused on generating all the base metal targets in Western North America. Both Orogen Royalties and South32 would be collaborating in the early stage of generative exploration to discover all the intrusion-related base metals in the unexplored regions of western North America. The budget for the project has been fixed at USD 300 thousand for enhancing the generative exploration work, which is mainly funded by South32. The initial land acquisition and all the exploration costs of...
Packaging sustainability continues to be a hot topic, given that assessments of sustainability can vary and may even contradict each other. It is also easy to become sidetracked, as many of these rankings rely on the hierarchy of sustainability metrics or the approach taken to analyse them. Now the debate begins, which is more sustainable in packaging, whether aluminium, glass or plastic. NAPCOR's study A recent study by The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) shows that Polyethene Terephthalate (PET) bottles stand out in key sustainability metrics compared to aluminium cans and glass bottles, emitting lower greenhouse gas emissions, consuming less energy and water during manufacturing and generating less solid waste by weight. The results, especially those with...
Ad Standards, the advertising regulator of Australia, has filed a complaint against the leading US mining giant Alcoa. The advertising watchdog has reported that Alcoa’s claim of rehabilitating 75 per cent of the Jarrah forest in one of their recent ads is unclear. But Alcoa maintains that its rehabilitation programmes and billion-dollar investments in Australia demonstrate a sincere effort to balance economic growth with ecological care. Alcoa’s reaffirmation of its standpoint Alcoa has claimed that the ad has been removed and the future campaigns will be aligned with the ruling. Additionally, Alcoa has also mentioned that by “rehabilitation”, specifically, they intended to portray the management initiative they have been adopting to restore the ecosystem’s productivity and not the...
“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish." – Michelle Obama October 8 th , 2025 – A day that will be for the women and by the women. So mark your calendar, cause the Women With Metal 2025 Conference is coming back once again this year to move, motivate and highlight achievements unlocked by women in the ALuminium industry. Started in 2023 by Kirsty Davies-Chinnock, the event has not only been a trend setter but also a stage where stereotypes have been crumbled and powerful stories have risen, reminding us all that strength and resilience aren’t defined by gender but by grit, vision, and courage. Yet, progress doesn’t come without challenges. Many still face gender bias, underrepresentation, and barriers to senior positions. Too often, women in this field recount experiences...
At Alba, safety is more than just a priority – it’s a way of life. This can be understood with their steady growth in safe working hours count without Lost Time Injury (LTI). The company has once again set a remarkable new standard, surpassing its previous milestones with an impressive achievement on September 3, 2025. Alba has now clocked 39 million safe working hours without a Lost Time Injury (LTI), a significant improvement from last year's 24 million hours, as reported on September 20, 2024. This milestone highlights Alba's unwavering commitment to creating a safe, healthy, and resilient environment for both its employees and contractors. Looking closer, on July 31st, Alba had already reached 38 million safe working hours , marking notable growth from the 37 million hours recorded on...
The first half of 2025 marked a turning point for the global aluminium industry, arguably its most turbulent period in recent memory. The trigger was the United States’ imposition of steep tariffs on aluminium imports, a move that set off ripple effects across global supply chains. What began as a trade policy measure quickly escalated into a broader disruption, reshaping cross-border trade dynamics, injecting volatility into global aluminium prices, and diverging demand patterns from primary aluminium to aluminium scrap. Supported by stable supply chains, prices within a reach of USD 2,200 per tonne, and tariff exemptions, the demand for scrap has attained a new high. Thailand emerged as a new hotspot of aluminium demand, fuelled by its expanding automotive manufacturing sector, and thus...
Europe’s renewable boom has a two-faced economy. On long, bright, windless days, it floods grids with cheap or even negative-priced power; when the weather turns, capture prices, as in the money actually earned by wind and solar assets after weighting by when they produce, recover sharply. That swing is not academic for aluminium. The metal’s primary production is among the industry’s hungriest electricity consumers, and swings in capture and wholesale power prices cut straight to smelters’ margins, investment plans and decarbonisation pathways. S&P Global’s Platts Renewable Energy Price Explorer shows exactly this dynamic playing out through mid-2025. Solar and wind output across Europe’s five largest markets rose about 10 per cent year-on-year in July, but output eased from June’s...
In the race to decarbonise heavy industries, some companies are leaving no stone unturned to find ways that are sustainable and beneficial to the environment. And in this race, one such company which is rewriting the rulebook with innovations is Novelis . Regarded as the global leader in aluminium rolling and recycling, Novelis has successfully carried out the UK’s first industrial-scale hydrogen fuel switching trial at its Latchford plant. The two-week demonstration, backed by the UK Department for Energy Security & Net Zero’s (DESNZ) £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP) through the Industrial Fuel Switching (IFS) Competition, saw a conventional natural gas furnace successfully adapted to run flexibly on hydrogen. The trial showed that hydrogen can be safely used in aluminium...
The chances of recycling garbage, nearly 384,000 kilometres away from Earth, into space can also create a great sustainability approach and is also an unavoidable task. NASA is undergoing preparation to make a long-term presence on the Moon with the support of the Artemis program, an agency that deals with similar challenges, which is managing waste sustainability. LunaRecycle Challenge, created by NASA, aiming to address the challenge of managing waste sustainability, is a USD 3 million initiative with a significant focus on developing systems helping the recycling mission directly on the Moon. Instead of bringing that trash back to Earth's surface, NASA plans to turn it into packaging, leftover experiment materials and worn textiles into beneficial resources. Being at the early stage,...
India’s renewable energy sector experienced USD 11.8 billion in financial investment in the first half of 2025, which is the second-highest half-year inflow in history, according to the latest reports. The momentum is indicative of India's increasing prominence in the global clean energy arena, spurred by an uptick of solar projects and consistent investor confidence. Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/ Clean energy auctions and regulatory landscape Clean power auctions were a critical growth lever. India is already one of the world's most active renewable markets, having approved 59 gigawatts (AC) of capacity in 2024, which is more than twice as much as the year before. Auctions provide revenue certainty and allow private developers to scale with long-term visibility. However,...
Your morning coffee might seem simple, a quick press of a button, a steaming cup in seconds. But behind that comforting ritual lies years of thinking, research, and experimentation. For millions of coffee lovers, the single-serve machine is a daily lifesaver, fast, fuss-free, and always ready to deliver that perfect cup. Yet, as convenient as it feels, what happens to the little capsule you toss away is just as important as the coffee inside it. When it comes to coffee pods, one brand that stands out is Nespresso. Infact Nespresso’s financial performance also speaks of its popularity by recording solid growth, with organic growth reaching 5.8 per cent, backed by 2.0 per cent real internal growth (RIG) and 3.8 per cent pricing increases during H1 2025. Consumers gravitate toward Nespresso...
India’s energy transition is not a linear march from coal to renewables. It is a high-wire act where efficiency, geopolitics, and industrial decarbonisation collide. From the creation of a revolving fund for energy efficiency to the scramble for discounted Russian oil, and from solar and hydrogen pushes to aluminium’s green makeover, the country’s choices are shaping both domestic industry and global trade flows. Image source: JMK Research Revolving capital, not one-off grants At the heart of India’s efficiency strategy is the Energy Efficiency Revolving Fund (EERF), seeded with USD 13 million from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Managed by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the fund deploys capital into efficient motors,...
The name of the winner for the 2025 Sustainability Awards, given by the Business Intelligence Group, was announced on August 26, 2025. Novelis, the world leader in aluminium rolling and recycling, has received the award by earning the recognition under the Sustainability Initiative of the Year category for its outstanding company vision "Novelis 3x30". The traction of this award highlights the firm's continuous quantifiable impacts that help drive environmental progress, prompting strong business results. Moreover, Novelis 3x30 have enabled aluminium to be the choice of metal with attributable circular solutions which directly align with the firm's agenda of "Shaping a Sustainable World". With Novelis 3x30, the firm is trying to achieve three primary enterprising objectives, which are...
The festive drums have already started rolling. With only 38 days left to the much-awaited celebrations of the year, preparations for Durga Pujo have already begun in full swing. Pandals are rising like dreams in every corner, artisans are giving life to the goddess with strokes of devotion, and amidst this wave of anticipation, Agrico is stepping into the spotlight with a celebration like no other. This year, the local Durga Puja Committee in Jamshedpur has unveiled its grand plans for a one-of-a-kind pandal that will gleam with the brilliance of shining aluminium sheets, adding a modern, reflective twist to the age-old tradition. The foundation ritual, held at the Agrico Club House ground on Tuesday, August 19, was graced by committee president Y.P. Singh, general secretary Bhupendra...
