ABU DHABI - Emirates Global Aluminium, the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium' producer, has joined the First Movers Coalition, putting the company’s purchasing power behind emerging clean technologies in hard-to-abate sectors.

The First Movers Coalition aims to signal market demand for low-carbon products from hard-to-abate sectors - including aluminium, aviation, chemicals, concrete, shipping, steel, and trucking - to accelerate their commercial-competitiveness with higher-carbon alternatives.

EGA is the first UAE-headquartered company to join the First Movers Coalition, whose current members include more than 50 major companies from around the world. The First Movers Coalition is led by the World Economic Forum and the United States Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry.

The hard-to-abate sectors targeted by the First Movers Coalition account for 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of the coalition is to use demand to speed the development and scaling-up of new technologies required to decarbonise these sectors.

By joining the First Movers Coalition, companies commit to buying a proportion of their needs from hard-to-abate sectors this decade as low carbon. EGA intends to identify suppliers in the hard-to-abate sectors with the capability to innovate on emissions reductions, and explore specific cooperative projects. Amongst the hard-to-abate sectors, EGA is a significant consumer of chemicals, shipping and trucking.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said, “As a UAE company, we are committed to the nation’s Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative. To decarbonise our aluminium, we have to reach net zero not just in our own operations but also our supply chain. Joining the First Movers Coalition is a powerful message to suppliers in hard-to-abate sectors that we will deploy our purchasing power to encourage decarbonisation.”

Bin Kalban continued, “Joining the First Movers Coalition is particularly relevant for EGA because we are a major global supplier of aluminium, which is itself one of the hard-to-abate industries. The commitment from other members of the First Movers Coalition to purchase low carbon aluminium will support our actions in our own supply chain.”

Head of the First Movers Coalition at the World Economic Forum Nancy Gillis said, “We welcome Emirates Global Aluminium as the first member of the First Movers Coalition from the United Arab Emirates, the host of COP28 next year. We look forward to working with EGA to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors, including aluminium.”

EGA spent some US$4.5 billion in its supply chain in 2021.

Last year, EGA became the first company in the world to produce aluminium commercially using the power of the sun, through a partnership with Dubai Electricity & Water Authority. Electricity generation accounts for around 60 percent of the global aluminium industry’s emissions. EGA markets this metal under the product name CelestiAL.

Earlier in 2022, EGA announced a strategic initiative with TAQA, Dubal Holding and EWEC to divest its natural gas-fired power plants and instead source electricity from the grid, including an increasing proportion of clean energy. The initiative would unlock significant further development of solar power in Abu Dhabi, progress power asset and generation optimisation, and enable EGA to vastly increase its production of CelestiAL.

EGA and “K” Line Group have signed an agreement to cooperate on the decarbonisation of bulk cargo shipping, focused on the development and implementation of new marine decarbonisation technologies suitable for EGA’s bulk cargo shipping routes in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. “K” Line Group is leading research into decarbonisation opportunities, with EGA set to target pilot projects on its “K” Line shipping routes.