Opportunity for mining industry

The Australian mining industry is being called upon to become a world leader in sustainable practices for sourcing rare minerals and metals, with electric car brand Polestar pushing for diversification of sourcing materials.

In a roundtable interview with Australian media, Polestar head of sustainability, Fredrika Klarén, said sourcing responsibly-mined materials was a key concern.

Ms Klarén is pushing to ensure the brand can ‘truthfully’ inform consumers about the carbon footprint of its cars.

However, Ms Klarén suggested that the mining industry, which in some places around the world may not offer complete transparency on its operations and supply chain framework, is one of the most difficult elements of the life cycle assessment, or LCA, for Polestar’s vehicles.

Ms Klarén said there was a distinct

‘lack of data’ in relation to supply, which was indicative of the ‘lockedin opaqueness of automotive supply chains’.

“Suppliers are really scared to share information and share data because they’ve seen that data is used for original equipment manufacturers, OEMs, to go to other competitors and so on,” she said.

“We’re trying to really engage suppliers in a new transparent way of building how we work in the automotive industry. It’s a huge challenge.”

Ms Klarén said Polestar was first in the automotive market to use blockchain technology to trace what she called ‘risk minerals’ in cars.

“Polestar 2 was the first car on the market that had cobalt traced via blockchain,” she said.

“We’ve extended that now also to the risk mineral mica — which is often used in paint finishes.

“We also use mica as an insulator in the batteries.