Reducing emissions through careful carbon footprinting

PT Vale Indonesia wanted to identify the largest greenhouse gas emissions sources from their Sorowako nickel mine. By providing a detailed carbon footprint assessment, Beca helped them set goals to reduce their emissions and energy costs.

Key goals for this project included gaining a better understanding of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across their operations, to achieve a Green PROPER rating from the Indonesian government and meet Vale’s global corporate carbon reduction targets. In addition, they also wanted to gain more transparency on their Nickel production footprint, due to increasing demand from EV battery producers.

To make this happen, our Decarbonisation Planning specialists, supported by our Industrial team established a baseline for future reporting, by calculating PT Vale’s 2018 greenhouse gas inventory for the Sorowako operational area.

GHG emissions were determined in accordance with ISO 14064-1:2018 and GHG protocol, to be consistent with international standards, and were categorised into three scopes:

• Scope 1: Direct GHG emissions from sources owned or controlled by the company.
• Scope 2: Indirect GHG emissions from imported energy purchased and consumed by the company through the upstream combustion of fuels to generate electricity, steam, heating and cooling.
• Scope 3: Indirect GHG emissions as a consequence of PT Vale activities from sources it does not own or control.

Our assessment covered Scope 1 and 2 emissions, including stationary and mobile fuel combustion, refrigerant use, miscellaneous gases, electrode paste and explosives, waste treatment by landfill or incineration, wastewater treatment and sludge disposal.

Other emission sources that were considered include hydro electricity generation, combustion of biofuel, land use change with forestry - deforestation and reforestation (sequestered).

A full breakdown of emission sources was then provided for PT Vale Indonesia, as input to developing and prioritising emission reduction strategies. As the implementation of these steps continues to progress, PT Vale’s Sorowako Nickel Mine is well on its way to becoming a cleaner, lower cost operation.