Aurubis expands Copper Mark certification

Aurubis AG, headquartered in Hamburg, has had its smelter network certified with the Copper Mark, an internationally recognized assurance framework for a sustainable and responsible supply chain in copper production.

Following certification of its sites in Pirdop, Bulgaria; Hamburg and Lünen, Germany; and Olen, Belgium, the company’s production site in Beerse, Belgium, and its rolling mill in Stolberg, Germany, have been certified. Furthermore, the Pirdop site also passed its routine recertification. In 2021, this plant was one of the first primary copper smelters worldwide to receive the Copper Mark seal.

With the six sites, all the company’s large smelters are certified by the Copper Mark, as is almost the entire global Aurubis smelter network, the company says. This covers more than 95 percent of the company’s cathode output, which it produces annually by processing concentrates and recycled materials.

The Copper Mark standards draw on the 33 internationally recognized sustainability criteria of the Risk Readiness Assessment of the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI), covering major environmental, social and governance issues. More than 100 sites in the copper industry have joined the Copper Mark since March 30, 2020, meaning bout 38 percent of the world’s copper is produced by Copper Mark-certified sites.

“Aurubis was one of the first supporters of the international Copper Mark assurance framework, Aurubis CEO Toral Haag says. “This is an expectation we place on ourselves; we advocate for a sustainable copper value chain. We are pleased that all of the large smelter sites, and by volume nearly the entire company, have now been certified in accordance with these exacting sustainability criteria.”

Aurubis Beerse also obtained the certification for the Nickel Mark and Zinc Mark and has been certified in tin under the Responsible Minerals Assurance Process (RMAP) program. The site specializes in recycling materials with low metal contents and producing the key metals copper, nickel, tin, zinc and lead.

The company's sites in Hamburg and Lünen already have the Nickel Mark, while Aurubis Lünen also has the Zinc Mark.

“I want to congratulate all employees at the Beerse site for this extraordinary success. The certification confirms our continuous efforts to operate the most sustainable smelter network in the world,” Hans Van de Water, managing director of Aurubis Olen and Beerse/Berango, says. “The results of continuously improving our processes are very clearly and positively reflected in the Copper Mark assessment.”

Additionally, the Aurubis plant in Stolberg is the first rolling mill in the Aurubis Group and worldwide to receive the Copper Mark certificate in the Fabricator category. The site, with about 400 employees, produces high-precision strip and wire made of copper and copper alloys.

“As a fabricator, we are the intermediary between metal production and the specific requirements of the product markets,” Benjamin Cappi, managing director of Aurubis Stolberg, says. “In the future, our customers will benefit from the consistent certification within the Aurubis Group.”

Last year, Aurubis also was one of the first companies worldwide to commit to the new Copper Mark Chain of Custody Standard, which defines requirements and boosts transparency in the copper supply chains even further. The company’s site in Olen was the world’s first smelter to be certified to the Copper Mark Chain of Custody Standard.

In the coming year, Copper Mark certification is planned for Deutsche Giessdraht GmbH, another Aurubis subsidiary. This site in Emmerich, Germany, produces the RheinROD copper wire rod brand used as starting material for electrical cables, among other things. The Aurubis sites in Hamburg and Lünen will undergo the Copper Mark recertification process next year as well.