Mitsubishi Materials, BHP launch end-to-end low-carbon copper traceability project

• One-year pilot aims to advance commercialisation of low-carbon copper products
• Digital platform developed to record, transfer environmental information across stages

Mitsubishi Materials, in collaboration with global miner BHP and six other partners, has launched a demonstration project to establish an end-to-end value chain for environmentally friendly copper cables by applying a mass balance credit model.

The initiative aims to verify how the environmental attributes of lower greenhouse gas (GHG) copper can be transferred transparently from mine to end user while supporting the broader commercialisation of low-carbon copper products. The demonstration programme, which commenced in April 2026, is expected to run for approximately one year.

The project utilises copper concentrate from BHP-operated Escondida mine in Chile. Since 2022, Escondida has sourced 100% of its purchased electricity from renewable energy, significantly reducing the operational GHG emissions associated with copper production.

This has contributed to a 36% reduction in BHP’s operational Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from its FY’20 baseline as of June 2025 while supporting the company’s target of achieving net-zero operational emissions by 2050.

Mitsubishi Materials will smelt the concentrate and manufacture copper wire rod, which will be marketed through its group company, Sambo Metals. The wire rod will subsequently be processed into copper cables by FCM and Yasaka Electric Wire, while Senshu Electric will distribute the finished cables for installation as electrical wiring at a future Amazon Japan logistics facility.

Environmental attributes throughout the supply chain will be managed under Mitsubishi Materials’ guidelines of the mass balance credit model for copper products, which comply with ISO 22095 and ISO 22095-2 standards. The mass balance approach allows the environmental value associated with low-GHG raw materials to be allocated to certified downstream products through a verified chain-of-custody system.

To ensure transparency and traceability, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Group companies NTT Circurust and NTT DATA Japan have developed a digital application that records and transfers environmental information across every stage of the value chain.

Although mining companies have accelerated efforts to reduce emissions during copper production, transferring these environmental benefits through complex global supply chains remains a major industry challenge. Multiple processing stages involving different companies often make it difficult to demonstrate that lower-carbon raw materials ultimately contribute to lower-carbon finished products.

The pilot seeks to establish a practical framework for recognising, managing, and communicating these environmental attributes from mine to end-use applications, thereby improving transparency and supporting the market acceptance of environmentally conscious copper products.

BHP views the demonstration as an important step towards developing scalable mechanisms for the wider adoption of lower-emission materials and evaluating practical approaches for transferring GHG-related environmental attributes from mining operations to downstream applications.

Mitsubishi Materials, which shares this objective, expects the project to generate practical knowledge on visualising, managing, and communicating environmental value across multiple processing stages, supporting the broader commercialisation of environmentally conscious copper products.

Note: This article has been published in accordance with a content exchange agreement between BigMint and Japan Metal Daily.