Sustainability

As the global aluminium market is growing at a significant pace driven by the demand primarily from future-focused industries and the transport and construction sectors, we understand the importance of being a responsible producer across the value chain of the metal of the future. We understand that sustainability is a continuous journey and at Pioneer, we are led by our purpose in all aspects of our business to ensure that we constantly optimise our production standards and find new ways to minimise our environmental impact.

Fire Safety

Our Refinery utilises advanced technologies and processes to reduce our energy consumption and emissions. By prioritising such sustainability best practices, we reduce our environmental impact while contributing to the long-term viability of our business and the well-being of our surrounding communities and other stakeholders.

At Pioneer Aluminium, our people are our most important resource. We have a strong commitment to ensuring the safety of all our employees, contractors and other personnel connected with operations through our Zero Harm policy and a target of achieving Zero accidents at the workplace.

Our ESG Roadmap

Pioneer Aluminium strives to maintain strong credentials in addressing ESG (environmental, social and governance) – related priorities. As part of our ESG journey, we are continuously working towards identifying newer and improved methods of achieving our bold sustainability aspirations.

We engage our employees in our carbon-neutrality efforts by providing training and education on sustainability, working towards the end goal of achieving a net-zero carbon footprint.

Our Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives are integral to our business strategy as we strive to create value for our stakeholders while contributing to improving society and the environment. Our core values of fairness, integrity, transparency, mutual respect and excellence guide our CSR initiatives.

Our waste management practices involve the responsible disposal and recycling of our waste streams to reduce landfill waste and minimise our environmental impact. In a few years, we aim to achieve the utilisation of 100% of solid waste produced in the Alumina refining process.

We implement industry best practices in water management including water-efficient technologies like closed-loop cooling systems and wastewater recycling to minimise our water use. At Pioneer, we continue to optimise our water consumption through process improvements and equipment maintenance, which helps increase water-use efficiency.

Towards Water Sufficiency

Water Sustainability

Alumina refining requires a considerable quantity of water. To address this challenge, during the design stage, we embarked on a unique water harvesting and storage plan to enable continuous operations of the Refinery without interruption, even during two straight seasons of reduced rainfall in the area.

Two ponds, with a holding capacity of about 15 million cubic metres, have been constructed within the Refinery premise enabling all water to be collected from the Refinery and adjacent areas instead of flowing into the sea. The water from these ponds is reused to meet the freshwater requirement for the co-generation power plant and the Alumina Refinery.

The alkaline water from the solid waste generated during bauxite processing, known as red mud, is drained and pumped to the process water pond having a capacity of 4 million cubic metres. The water from this pond is continuously pumped back into the Refinery for reuse, thus reducing freshwater intake and avoiding pollution due to Caustic Soda, which is recovered from the pond.

All rainwater falling in the process area that handles Caustic Soda is collected and leads to an additional water pond having a capacity of 20,000 cubic metres. From here, it is continuously recycled back to the process area without any time delay, thus continually restricting the flow of alkaline water from the process area to the limits of our plant and enabling efficient utilisation in the refining process.

The above activities enable us to conserve our water usage while ensuring “zero discharge” of any liquid outside our Refinery area.

Solid Waste Management

At our alumina refinery, we are dedicated to sustainable waste management and resource utilisation. Currently, we generate approximately 1.3 tons of red mud (a solid waste produced during bauxite processing) per ton of alumina produced. To ensure responsible disposal, we store the red mud as “thickened mud” with solids content of 50% to 55% by weight in our specially constructed red mud pond. The pond is equipped with an HDPE lining, eliminating any risk of seepage into the ground.

By October 2023, we will introduce red mud pressure filters, resulting in mud disposal with a solids content of about 75% and minimal caustic soda. With a planned annual production capacity of 2 million tons of alumina, we soon anticipate generating approximately 2.5 million tons of red mud per year. Recognising the opportunities presented by our refinery’s location, we are actively exploring various commercial applications for red mud utilisation, including:

  • Additive for cement production.
  • Manufacturing of bricks.
  • Extraction of iron from red mud.
  • Additive for cement production.
  • Manufacturing of bricks.
  • Extraction of iron from red mud.

Our goal is to achieve 100% utilisation of the red mud generated within a span of ten years, ultimately eliminating the need for red mud storage.

Health & Safety

At Pioneer Aluminium, our people are our most important resource. Through our Zero Harm policy, we are committed to ensuring the safety of all our employees, contractors and other personnel connected with operations.

A strong emphasis on improving Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) parameters has helped us substantially reduce the number of onsite injuries while we continue to actively reduce risks through people engagement, capability building, and strengthening OSH management systems and processes.

We are committed to transparent and comprehensive reporting on our sustainability performance.