Quantification of greenhouse gas emissions from copper mining to refining

Material flow data are generally used to assess the environmental footprint of economic activities, e.g. through life cycle assessments (LCAs). This is particularly relevant for the resource-intensive sector of primary raw material extraction and the associated raw material supply chains. As LCAs are firmly established in industry, research, and governmental organizations to support decision-making, e.g. for comparing the environmental impact between recycling processes and primary raw material extraction, an up-to-date and transparent database is the basis for meaningful results. However, the ecological parameters for primary raw material extraction up to refining in the databases often do not reflect the current status. In addition, the data for many metals are often only aggregated values and not available for individual process steps of mining, processing, smelting and refining.

To address this challenge, we conducted a comprehensive survey of emissions data and other project- or deposit-specific data on copper mining, smelting and refining, and correlated the results with currently available general sector data. The data collection was carried out, on the one hand, through a customized questionnaire completed by the companies participating in the studies and, on the other hand, through literature research. The newly acquired project-specific knowledge enables improved calculation of the carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions of representative mining projects and smelters/refineries. Furthermore, it serves for a direct analysis of the calculation bases for life cycle assessments and the data on CO₂ emissions of other data providers and their evaluation.