START: Helping transform value chains
“A digital transformation and partnership with aluminium end-users is the only way the aluminium industry can be fully transparent along the entire value chain. To help meet this imperative, we created START—the first digital sustainability label for the aluminium industry.”
In a recent AlCircle article, Paramita Das, Head of Metals & Minerals, Marketing and ESG at Rio Tinto shares how START is helping to transform the aluminium value chain. We share excerpts from her interview. Download the full article.
AlCircle: Why digital transformation is the key to sustainability? What is Rio Tinto’s aluminium business doing to make progress towards this?
Paramita Das: Aluminium undergoes many transformations from a red bauxite rock to the metal found everywhere in life—from mining, refining, and smelting to transportation and final transformation. So, how can consumers be confident the product they have just purchased was made responsibly?
By understanding—and being able to trace—the full process. A digital transformation and partnership with aluminium end-users is the only way the aluminium industry can be fully transparent along the entire value chain.
To help meet this imperative, we created START™—the first digital sustainability label for the aluminium industry. START tells the entire story of sustainable aluminium orders—including key environmental, social, and governance criteria (ESG criteria). With this platform, Rio Tinto is leading the digital transformation of a 150-year-old industry.
AlCircle: Can you tell us how Rio Tinto’s first sustainability label for aluminium, START, is performing? How have customers responded?
Das: We created START to help our customers—and the consumers who buy their products—make informed decisions. Our goal is to support increased transparency and traceability across the aluminium supply chain. To that end, START is setting a new standard for aluminium sustainability.
On the START platform, our customers (and their customers) have access to a revolutionary and secure blockchain-based platform that delivers key ESG criteria for every step of the aluminium process. Users can manage all their aluminium orders in a central location. Then, by scanning a unique QR code, customers can instantly access detailed information on the aluminium provenance and fourteen essential ESG criteria—from mine to market.
Since START was launched last year, we have received overwhelming positive support, and many customers have signed up for this programme. The high level of interest further corroborates the demand for traceability, provenance, and sustainability in the industry.
AlCircle: Rio Tinto and Corona Canada pilot Canada’s first specially marked low carbon can leveraging ELYSIS™ technology. Can you share the success story of this product? How digital transformation is putting an impact on it?
Das: Currently, around 70% of the aluminium used in cans produced in North America is made with recycled aluminium. Pairing recycled metal with Rio Tinto’s low-carbon aluminium, made with renewable hydropower and the direct greenhouse gas emissions-free ELYSIS smelting technology reduces carbon emissions by more than 30%.
These cans are the first step to a fully traceable, transparent beverage experience leveraging START insights. START’s ability to track and trace complex and convoluted value chains opens a world of opportunity.
It gives the world an assured and secure way to provide transparent information from the mine all the way to the consumer. With START and cooperation partners, we’ll be able to connect the information in the value chain transparently.
START will help to transform the world so that one day when you buy something with a START logo, you’ll know that it’s the one to get for its sustainability practices, backed by transparency and traceability credentials.
