SUSTAINABILITY
“The pandemic has accelerated the green energy transition and industrial decarbonisation ”
WAYNE DOUGLAS HEAD OF DIGITAL - MINING , FLSMIDTH
Mission Zero MissionZero is not just a transient campaign but a key ambition that informs the majority of FLSmidth ’ s strategy – an initiative to enable the mining industry to move towards zero energy waste , zero water waste and zero emissions by 2030 . “ When we launched MissionZero in 2019 we made a firm commitment to place it at the heart of our business for the coming decade and beyond ,” confirms Douglas .
Douglas stresses that MissionZero is not a “ silver bullet ” or a ready-to-go suite of solutions , but an ambitious , game-changing programme that requires a paradigm shift from the mining industry . “ From our side , it will involve a re-prioritised offering towards our customers , supported by current and future R & D and digital developments . And from the industry , it means co-creating new possibilities , ensuring adoption of current environmentally sound solutions and a commitment to digital- and data-driven resource efficiency .”
Research & Development Innovation at FLSmidth is viewed through the lens of MissionZero and digitalization . “ We collaborate closely with global product
and service line management and our clients to examine the challenges facing the industry to develop product and service solutions that increase reliability , decrease environmental footprint , while maximising production ,” says Douglas .
To feed the long-term innovation pipeline , the company actively collaborates with universities and institutions worldwide looking for early-stage disruptive technology development that can provide novel solutions to complex problems . Douglas notes that some of the most important technological breakthroughs in mining of recent years - HPGRs , minerals processing simulation tools and the REFLUX Classifier - have come from R & D in academia ; making research partnerships increasingly important .
110 May 2021