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Investment deep divesGreener copper and aluminium now have a price
Producers are selling lower-carbon metal made with scrap and cleaner power. The harder question is which footprint counts, and whether buyers will pay for it.
October 19, 2026 · Corby Editorial Team · 7 min read
Last reviewed October 20, 2026
Copper and aluminium do not arrive with a single carbon number. The global average for refined copper is about 3.97 tonnes of CO₂ for each tonne of metal, and primary aluminium averages about 14.8 tonnes, according to the International Copper Association and the International Aluminium Institute. Those averages hide a wide spread. Scrap, hydropower and a different smelter can move the figure by several tonnes.
Reuters set out, on 19 October 2026, how producers are already selling named lower-carbon products, and how a pricing agency linked to the London Metal Exchange is trying to put a premium on “sustainable” metal. For a private client, the useful question is not whether green metal exists. It is what the label measures, and whether the extra price is a real market or a brochure.
The footprint is three different bills
Scope 1 is what the plant emits itself. Scope 2 is the electricity it buys. Scope 3 is everything else in the chain, from the mine to, in a full count, the products made from the metal. Producers usually include some upstream Scope 3 and leave downstream uses out. Two cathodes can both be called low-carbon and still not be comparable.
That is why a single marketing line is not a number you can put in a portfolio note. Ask which scopes are in the figure, who calculated it, and whether it is per tonne of metal at the smelter gate.
What “lower carbon” looks like in the catalogue
On copper, Reuters listed Montanwerke Brixlegg at 0.63 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of metal, using recycled feed and renewable power, across Scopes 1, 2 and 3. Boliden’s figure, from its own mines plus recycled material, was 1.5 tonnes. Aurubis quoted a cathode at 1.3 tonnes. All three sit well below the global refined-copper average. They are not the same product, and they are not the whole market.
On aluminium the spread is wider, because primary metal is so electricity-hungry. Alcoa’s Ecolum is described as under 3.5 tonnes on Scopes 1 and 2, with a separate Ecolum line that is at least half recycled. Norsk Hydro’s Reduxa range, made mainly with renewable power, is offered under 4, 3.5 or 3 tonnes across Scopes 1 to 3. Its Circal metal is scrap-based: one grade with at least 75% scrap at about 1.9 tonnes, and one that is fully recycled at under 0.5. Rio Tinto’s Renewal is 4 tonnes or less on Scopes 1 and 2. Rusal’s Allow, using Siberian hydropower, is under 4 tonnes, and its Allow Inerta — inert-anode smelting — is reported near 0.01 tonnes on Scopes 1 and 2. Other named lines from Emirates Global Aluminium, Century Aluminum, China Hongqiao and the Alcoa–Rio Tinto Elysis venture follow the same pattern: cleaner power, more scrap, or a new cell technology.
A premium only exists if someone pays it
The same Reuters piece notes that Commodity Pricing and Analysis Ltd, tied to the London Metal Exchange, has begun publishing premiums for copper and aluminium it treats as sustainable. The agency has struggled to get firms to hand over sensitive trade data, which is the only way to see what buyers actually pay rather than what they say they might pay.
A premium quoted from conversations is not the same as a premium cleared in size. If you own a miner, a smelter or a fund that markets “green metal”, ask whether any of that metal has changed hands at the advertised extra, and on whose definition. A threshold close to the industry average will make ordinary production look sustainable. A threshold near the best plants will not.
What to write down before you treat it as a theme
Lower-carbon metal is a real industrial development. It is also a labelling problem. Scrap and clean power do cut the footprint. They do not, by themselves, tell you the price, the volume, or whether the next buyer will pay up.
For a private portfolio the exposure is usually the mining or metals company, not a tonne of cathode. Read the product claim against the scopes, then read the premium against actual trades. If neither number survives that check, it is a story about marketing, not about a new market.
Source: Reuters, 19 October 2026
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