Glencore PLC said on Thursday its ‘responsible stewardship’ of coal assets was the ‘correct’ way to meet its green ambitions, reaffirming its commitment to slash its carbon emissions footprint and become net-zero by 2050.

Presenting the company’s 2021 sustainability report, Glencore Chair Kalidas Madhavpeddi said on Thursday it is not just that simply passing carbon-intensive assets to others will not get the world to net-zero.

Net-zero emissions mean that some greenhouse gases are still released, but these are offset by removing an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and storing it permanently in soil, plants or materials.

‘Our board continues to believe that our responsible stewardship model for our coal assets is the correct one for all stakeholders,’ Madhavpeddi said. ‘Our board believes that the ESG responsibilities for these assets are best managed by Glencore as a responsible operator, rather than leaving these to be someone else’s problem.’

Anglo American PLC last year got rid of its South African coal assets by spinning them off into a separately listed Thungela Resources Ltd.

Glencore said it revised emissions targets are a 15% reduction by 2026 and 50% cut by 2035.

The Baar, Switzerland-based commodity trader and miner said its ambition was to be a net-zero total emissions company by 2050 in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change framework.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report indicates that in order to limit the impacts of climate change, the international community needs to collectively halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieve global net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

Shares in Glencore were down 5.2% at 491.68 pence on Thursday morning in London, while they shaved off 2.1% at R 97.52 in Johannesburg.

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