Metso Insights Blog People and culture Creating a more sustainable future with our Planet Positive offering
Mar 19, 2021

Creating a more sustainable future with our Planet Positive offering

Kaisa Jungman
Kaisa Jungman
Director, Sustainable Business Development
There is enormous demand for environmental efficiency in our industry. By default, society uses metals in such large quantities that also the amounts of energy and water used by the mining industry are extensive. We provide our customers with durable, energy- and water-efficient equipment and services for a long operational life. In this blog, I talk about our handprint, meaning the reduced environmental and safety related impacts that arise when our customers use our sustainable solutions. We offer a comprehensive range of sustainable products and solutions for the mining, aggregates and metals industries.
Man looking at crushing ans screening equipment setup at a site.

Metso Outotec is committed to the 1.5 °C journey in line with the Paris Agreement. We aim for a Planet Positive impact in everything we do, and our sustainable offering is one of the most essential focus areas. By innovating new and even better technologies for our Planet Positive portfolio, we help to create a more sustainable future.

Our Planet Positive offering has a central role in our sustainability agenda and 1.5 °C journey, since they represent the key means of improving the resource efficiency of our customers’ operations. Our long-term goal is to provide customers with products and services that are even more sustainable. We will continuously develop our offering, with a focus on energy efficiency, reducing emissions, water efficiency, circular solutions and safety. Over 90% of our R&D projects in terms of spend are expected to have a target related to energy, emissions or water reduction.

As part of our handprint we annually measure the amount of CO2 emissions avoided by using Metso Outotec technologies compared to industry baselines or alternative technologies. Emissions of seventeen of Metso Outotec’s technologies were measured in 2020. Metso Outotec has long-term targets related to the environmental performance of its products and services with the aim of doubling the CO2 handprint by 2035 compared to 2019 baseline. In 2020, Metso Outotec’s CO2 handprint among the seventeen technologies, meaning the avoided emissions in our customers’ operations, was 8.2 million tonnes.

We maximize our handprint with

Water-efficient solutions,
sustainable tailings solutions &
tailings ponds conversion into resources

Energy- and emission-efficient solutions
in comminution, beneficiation and refining

Circular solutions, equipment life-cycle
extension solutions, wear parts recycling solutions

Solutions to eliminate environmental,
health and safety, and societal risks
in customer operations

Energy efficiency and emissions

Better solutions in minerals processing are essential, as our customers are facing a future with reduced ore quality and/or the need to satisfy a growing demand for minerals. For them, our products offer energy-efficient options in material transport, size reduction, mineral separation and dewatering.

Let’s take comminution as a more specific example. Comminution is the process of reducing particle size and it is one of the most energy-intensive parts of minerals processing. It accounts for more than 50% of a mine’s energy consumption on average. In comminution, we offer leading energy-saving technologies in HPGRs and stirred mills.

Similarly, for aggregate production we have energy-efficient crushers and dual-power offering.

HRCe as a rendered 3D model
Next-generation HRCe high pressure grinding technology for superior grinding and energy efficiency improved by up to 15%.

Water efficiency

Water availability and minimizing water-related risks have increasingly become a concern and cost factor for communities and businesses, including our customers. We address the risks in customer operations involving water through solutions for water reuse and circuit optimization, including equipment for sustainable tailings processing.

Dry tailings plant pictured from above.
Optimized footprint of tailings storage and minimized fresh-water intake with our dry tailings plant.

Circular economy

Making the most out of our scarce resources means minimizing waste with closed loops, resource efficiency and good product development. We design recyclable, durable and environmentally efficient equipment that can be serviced. Circular solutions are key in our offering and include equipment life-extension through repair, refurbishments and upgrades, process optimization and wear parts recycling. Our circularity offering also includes solutions for recycling construction and demolition waste and for producing manufactured sand.

With upgrades and modernizations the lifetime of the equipment can be extended.
With upgrades and modernizations the lifetime of the equipment can be extended.

Safe customer operations

With our offering, we aim to mitigate environmental, health and safety, and societal risks in customer operations. Our products are designed to meet all the relevant standards, norms and directives in the respective delivery countries.

They are delivered with the appropriate information and instructions to ensure safe operation, services and maintenance. In addition, we offer a wide range of life cycle services to ensure that all the products in use will continue to meet existing and future requirements throughout their life cycle. Safety of our products is one of the key drivers in our research and development work.

The Metso Outotec Truck Body delivers HSE benefits to truck drivers by reducing vibrations by 97% and noise by 50%.
The Metso Outotec Truck Body delivers HSE benefits to truck drivers by reducing vibrations by 97% and noise by 50%.
We are Planet Positive
We cover the environmental, social and financial aspects of sustainability. Planet Positive portfolio focuses on our most impactful technologies.